


giving me everything (inside and out)

by ohjeezthatsme



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 20:12:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 30,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14409726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohjeezthatsme/pseuds/ohjeezthatsme
Summary: Beca may hate movies but she knows how they end.Or does she?(Or: What if Beca and Chloe got together during the Barden years? An exploration of those four years together.)





	1. First Year

Beca came to Barden looking for somewhere to fit in with people who get her.

She’s been hearing from every adult around her that college is where you find your place and while she rolled her eyes at all of that, she still secretly yearned for somewhere she felt truly comfortable. She was a little disappointed that her roommate seemed to hate her within their first meeting. Beca was hoping it was just because they were both loners. Maybe they could bond over that.

She was proven wrong when Kimmy Jin immediately ditched her and made a beeline for the Korean Student’s Association tent. Beca was bitter that she was left standing alone while everyone around her was making friends and grouping off together.

She wished for the comfort and security of her laptop and her mixing equipment. If she was busy mixing, then she could play off her solitude as something that was her explicit choice.

She was told so often how different she would feel in college but so far, she’s feeling out of place and very alone, just like she always is.

She decided to at least use the fair as a place to avoid any conversation with her father so Beca wandered around hoping for at one interesting club. She saw a banner for Barden DJ’s and she could feel her day turning around.

That feeling took a sharp turn at the discovery that it was actually for deaf Jews. Figuring that she could stand to make a friend, Beca struck up a conversation with the Australian who had also mistaken the booth.

“Not many Jewish people where you’re from?”

“Aaah, no. I did do Fiddler on the Roof though. In high school, it was like, me and some Aboriginals. It was really Jewish.” Beca could feel her eyebrows rising and, seeing an opening, slid away from the booth and the potentially crazy Australian.

Boy, she felt sorry for the unlucky souls who ended up friends with that chick.

She was back to walking alone through a sea of people. She paused and was trying to decide which way to go when she heard a voice call out to her.

-

Chloe always knew that Aubrey was a bit… _intense_. But after the event-that-shall-not-be-named at Nationals, she’s taken it to a whole new level.

Chloe returned from her break with a sense of relief that she no longer had to live under the tyranny of the last Bella captain. She was not expecting Aubrey to have completely fallen off the wagon and already have a whiteboard with a ‘Road to Glory’ drawn on it.

Their apartment was converted into a Bella base. Aubrey had covered the place in post-it’s that were covered in words like ‘Victory!’ and phrases her dad had taught her.

Chloe was a little terrified to be honest, Aubrey was so set on redeeming herself that she was going to run herself into the ground. As her best friend, it was on Chloe to stop that from happening.

Chloe had stayed up all night surrounded by stencils and blue paint creating their booth for the activities fair, and then did the same the next night after Aubrey vetoed the first one. She was insistent that the Bella’s would remain rooted in their traditions, which was great, but those traditions weren’t getting them any new recruits.

Chloe was never really bought into the same traditions that were imposed by their previous captain. But Aubrey was so obsessed with not changing a thing from the previous year that her suggestions fell on deaf ears.

That was why Chloe was shocked at how easily Aubrey gave over a flyer to someone who was nowhere near the mould for what the Bella’s were previously.

Fat Amy was perhaps one of most confident people Chloe had ever met. Chloe didn’t really know what to do with her mermaid dancing or the fact that she was apparently the best singer in Tasmania (with teeth!) but it was enough for Aubrey.

After Amy left with a promise to “bring the fat power” to auditions, Chloe was more confident in passing out flyers to girls who weren’t traditional Bella’s.  She had a lengthy conversation with a Jessica- or was it Ashley? - either way, she convinced them to come to auditions.

When Chloe first saw Beca, her first impression was that she looked alone and a little lost. Her second thought was that she was the most beautiful person she had ever seen.

“What about her?”

Chloe barely waited for Aubrey’s disapproval before she bulldozed right over it. All she wanted to do was talk to the sad, beautiful girl. Chloe always had a soft spot for strays and this girl definitely had the lost look of a stray.

-

Beca glanced over to the voice that summoned her and before she knew it, her feet were leading her straight over.

This girl was probably the most beautiful person Beca had ever seen.

She thought most of the ways that people describe others’ eyes were just corny garbage but Beca was honestly lost in this girls’ eyes, she just couldn’t look away. They were so big and blue that Beca felt like she was being hypnotised.

She was so entranced that the girl finished speaking and Beca had to scramble for a smooth answer when the only thing she heard was acapella.

“Oh, right. This is like, a thing now.” Not exactly what she had in mind, but the redhead’s smile doesn’t waver.

“Oh totes!” Beca felt her eyebrows quirk at the joy radiating from this person. “We sing covers of songs, but without any instruments. It’s all from our mouths!” Beca was trying really hard to follow along with what she was being told. But the redhead hasn’t looked away and Beca is just struggling a little bit with focusing on anything but those eyes.

“Yikes.”

Beca had almost forgotten about the blonde off to that side until she spoke. From her words and tone, Beca got the feeling that this girl already didn’t like her and was jut barely holding it together.

She’s never really been one to listen to her better instincts so of course Beca pushes the blonde’s button just a little further. Most people’s reaction to getting called a bitch wouldn’t be amusement and a sense of victory.

That victory kind of stalled when the redhead tried to smooth over from this Aubrey character.

Beca had thought her eyes were hypnotising before they were being put to work with some of the best puppy dog eyes, probably in the history of the world.

“Help us make our dreams a reality?” Beca could almost physically see her resolve crumbling the more the redhead spoke.

Her voice was so sincere and Beca was so trapped in her gaze that she almost gave in on the spot. This girl was so earnest in her pleas and had Aubrey not been there, Beca has no doubt that she would have agreed to whatever she wanted. Then Aubrey moved into the corner of her eye and Beca was already shaking her head as she turned them down.

“I’m sorry but I can’t even sing.” Those eyes dimmed a little in disappointment and her smile wilted. Beca tried to make up for it, “Good luck.”

As she turned and left Beca told herself she wasn’t running away but she was definitely moving with a lot more purpose than usual. But it was fine because there was no possible way they would know she was lying, it was a big campus and she probably wouldn’t even see them again.

-

Chloe was disappointed, but Aubrey was having none of it and just shoved more flyers her way while Chloe watched the girl disappear into the swell of freshmen. Even if she wasn’t going to be a Bella, Chloe still had a feeling that she was going to something special, that she would be some _one_ special.

Chloe hadn’t managed to get the girl out of her head and it wasn’t just because she turned down the Bella’s. (There were a lot of girls who turned them down in a variety of ways.)

There was just something about her that called to something in Chloe. It was the same thing that made it impossible for Chloe to tear her eyes away during their entire interaction.

With their disappointing recruiting run, Aubrey had been surrounded by an incredible tension that seemed to hum in the very air. Chloe braced herself to power through it until Aubrey just up and left for her self-mandated gym session. 

Desperate to relax and try and finally get the activities fair girl out of her head, Chloe texted Tom. She was being well and truly distracted when she heard it. The voice floated through the largely empty room and flowed right into Chloe’s brain.

She was moving before she could even think about it. She wasn’t even thinking about crashing a stranger’s shower. The voice had wrapped its way around her mind and refused to let go.

When the source of the voice turned out to be the same girl from the activities far, Chloe wasn’t too surprised. It seems almost fate that the girl she had felt pulled towards was also musically gifted.

“You can sing!” She hadn’t intended on bursting into someone’s shower but there was no way she was letting this girl walk away from her again. Not after hearing her sing.

Shocked and panicked eyes met hers as the girl desperately tried to shove the curtain closed while also covering herself in the one move. Chloe, focused and on a mission, just tugged the curtain out of the way again.

She squawked out some sort of reprimand, but Chloe was entirely focused on the idea of this girl in the Bella’s. With her in the group then they may stand an actual chance of a repeat Nationals.

“How high does your belt go?”

“Seriously? I am nude.”

Chloe started to feel a little guilty at how alarmed the other girl appeared as she huddled against the wall of the shower and peeked back over her shoulder at the redhead.

“You were singing Titanium, right?” She stepped in closer and ducked her head to try and catch the skittish girls’ eyes. If Chloe could get her to feel the same connection that she feels than it will be easier to convince her to join the Bella’s.

“You know David Guetta?” There was disbelief in her voice that was only slightly masking joy and excitement.

Chloe took that tone as a sign of progress and was already more comfortable. The other girl must have been feeling the same way because she relaxed her shoulders a little and moved away from the wall in eagerness for the turn in conversation. Chloe felt her excitement build in response.

“Have I been living under a rock?” Chloe blames her next tease on her excitement at finding her activities fair girl. “That song is my jam. My lady jam.”

“That’s nice.” The girl grimaces and moved back closer to the wall.

“It is. The song really builds.” Chloe laughed a little at the awkward girl in front of her. She had gone back to huddling against the wall but at least now there was a near constant quirk to her lips.

She was pretty sure that on a more open person it would have been an actual smile. “Will you sing it for me?”

“Dude, no! Get out!”

“Not for that reason. I’m not leaving here until you sing.”

-

Beca had never been more uncomfortable in her life.

However, she had never been so comfortable in front of a stranger either. She doesn’t sing for just any old person. And she _definitely_ doesn’t start singing while they are both naked in a communal shower.

Beca found herself unable to look anywhere near Chloe as she reluctantly began to sing but as soon as Chloe’s voice soared over the top of hers, Beca’s eyes snapped to her and she found herself unable to look anywhere else.

She had thought that those blue eyes were the weapon but that were nothing compared to the power of her voice and the sound of their voices joined together.

So entranced was she, that she had forgotten that Chloe had burst into her shower stall and that they were both naked.

She was forcibly reminded of that fact when they had finally finished singing.

In an effort to try and stop the smile she felt creeping across her face and to escape the trap of those eyes, Beca glanced down only to be met with the sight of Chloe’s bare skin.  It was right then that Beca decided that there wasn’t any one weapon in Chloe’s arsenal; her eyes, her voice, and her body were all dangerous.

Everything about the redhead was a weapon when it came to tearing Beca’s defensive walls down.

She had thought that they must have been alone in the shower room this last until a random guy (also naked) slid into the doorway of the stall just behind Chloe. He complimented her voice as Chloe nodded along in sincere agreement, as if that was any explanation for why her shower had been interrupted by two strangers.

Any comfort Beca had felt when she and Chloe had been singing was nothing but a distant memory. She stared desperately at Chloe, but the redhead was oblivious to the lecherous looks her shower buddy was throwing the both of them.

Beca was pointedly ignoring how attractive the redhead in front of her was and how much she was smiling at her as if this was a completely regular occurrence. It took far too many seconds of Beca’s expectant stare for Chloe to pick up on the situation and she couldn’t put into words how relieved she was when her shower stall returned to the recommended capacity of one.

Beca had no intention of starting her college career off with this kind of bang.

“See you at auditions!” Said with such careless joy. As if that wasn’t just the most uncomfortable experience of Beca’s young life. As if Beca would ever be able to look at her in the eyes ever again.

She was gearing herself up to scoff at the idea of willingly joining acapella when she found herself humming Titanium, but it wasn’t Sia’s voice in her head, it was Chloe’s.

Still, no matter how great their brief duet was or how much she would love to get Chloe on some of her mixes, Beca was not going to go to that audition. At all.

The absolute last thing Beca ever needed was to be spending more time with the clearly boundary challenged redhead, a potentially insane blonde and the other inevitable nerds that would join an acapella group.

-

The day of the auditions Beca spent far too much time on a Titanium mix that just never sounded quite right, no matter how much she fiddled with it. Even in her classes she couldn’t escape; every flash of red made her think of Chloe and every pair of blue eyes was compared and found wanting.

Beca stubbornly refused to give in to the urge to go to the audition and instead closed herself off into her world of mixes. She made it a point to only work on mixes that were as far away from anything by David Guetta or Sia she could get.

No matter how hard she tried to lose herself in the mixes she was making, she couldn’t get those unnaturally blue eyes and a bright smile out of her mind.

She wasn’t able to stop keeping her eye on the clock and so when the time came for the auditions to begin, the only thing Beca could see was Chloe’s face. She groaned lowly before she whisked herself out of the room.

She got to the hall just as the auditions were wrapping up and she was almost disappointed before she saw Chloe’s expression change so drastically at the sight of her standing in the wings. Beca could feel her hesitation seeping away at just how willing Chloe was to give her a chance. Not only was she holding up all the auditions, but she pushed right past Beca not actually being prepared for the audition.

Beca was kind of hoping that maybe Chloe had been thinking a lot about the shower duet too. At least then she wouldn’t be the only one thinking irrationally just because of some lines of a David Guetta song.

Beca hadn’t really been prepared for an actual audition part but she decided to bust out one little party trick that she had learned after one very bored afternoon.

Beca tried to remain stoic throughout her performance but it didn’t seem likely. Between Chloe’s eyes glinting at her and Aubrey not exactly glaring through her (it was close though), Beca was having a somewhat harder time than usual.

Chloe’s face after her song reminded Beca very strongly of the expression of predators right before they go in for the kill.

(A very small voice in the very back of her head was quite pleased that she had worn one of her lower cut shirts and one of her better bras.)

Beca wasn’t surprised that she saw the same Australian she had met at the fair. An acapella audition seemed like just the place for her.

Once her audition was finished and the all of the aca hopefuls were mingling together Chloe came through and chatted to all of the girls who auditioned for the Bella’s.

“So, you can’t even sing, huh?”

 Beca didn’t need to turn around to know the owner of that smugly amused voice. She didn’t need to turn but she was glad that she did when she was met with Chloe almost as close as she was in the showers.

“I’ve never sung acapella before.” She patted herself on the back for not sounding as nervous as she felt.

She knew that Chloe had liked her perfomance from her face, but she had just watched Chloe beam her way through encouraging conversations with people that were not great. Chloe was obviously far too kind and Beca was nervous that she had only been cornered off alone over here so that Chloe could let her down easily.

“Don’t worry, you were amazing.” Any smugness or amusement was stripped away and all that was left was an overwhelming amount of sincerity. Not only was she sincere, she also reached out for Beca’s hand to grasp it in reassurance. Beca was left floundering for a response. She watched in helpless anticipation as some of that amusement glinted back into the redheads’ eyes, “Aca-mazing even.”

Beca was flooded with relief as Chloe threw her an exit from the uncomfortable sincerity of their conversation. She could, however, do banter quite comfortably so she slipped her hand out of Chloe’s and with a roll of her eyes responded, “Oh god, stop. Please no more or I’ll faint.”

“Not the first time I’ve heard that said to me.” Chloe threw back with a lascivious wink.

“Gross.”

Beca’s mind had completely shut down and she was honestly shocked that she even managed a single word. Chloe’s clear amusement at her suffering prompted Beca to wave her metaphorical white flag.

“What can I do to make you stop?”

Being a good winner, Chloe at least made an attempt to stifle her chuckle before passing a folder and pen over, “You have to fill out these forms with all your information, so we can contact you.”

Beca was hunched over writing and she looked up with a smirk and a quirked eyebrow as Chloe finished, “And if I don’t want you to contact me?”

“Ouch.” Chloe gasped and clutched at her chest in fake offense. She dropped the hand and her eyes seemed to darken with mischief as a lecherous smirk crawled slowly across her face, “It’s okay though; if I get really desperate, I know where you shower.”

“You’re so weird. I never should have come here.” Beca snorted and handed back her finished pages. Chloe only quickly glanced over them before focusing her attention back on Beca with a sunny grin.

“No way! This was fate Miss Mitchell, you were meant for this. Trust me, I can totes feel it.” With her wise nodding and sincerity, Beca felt like maybe Chloe really could know how this would all end. And if Chloe was going to have any say in it, Beca was _definitel_ y going to be a Bella.

She couldn’t really fight off the urge to just stand and smile at Chloe. Something she was starting to notice was just the effect the bubbly ginger had on just about everyone. Even still, Beca glanced around at the remainder of the crowd and hunched her shoulders up with a small scowl at anyone who cast a glance toward their little corner.

She looked back up at Chloe who was taking a bit more time to peruse her application forms with a little smile, “I’ve uh… I’ve kind of made it a point to not sing. You know, in front of people.”

“Oh yeah? What changed your mind?” Her tone and the twinkle in her eyes told Beca that she was absolutely being teased.

She quirked her eyebrow and dryly stated, “Some crazy chick crashed into my shower and didn’t really give me a choice in the matter.”

“Ooh, sounds fun.”

“It wasn’t fun at all. I sincerely hope that it will never, _ever_ , happen again. Ever”

“Liar.” Chloe chuckled and glanced over to where Aubrey was standing.

Beca was suddenly very glad that looks could not kill but even still, with the intensity of the blonde’s stare, she wasn’t so sure anymore.

The flirty redhead departed with a wink, “I’ll see you soon, Beca Mitchell.”

Beca had a sinking feeling that she had just been accepted into the Barden Bella’s.

-

Chloe was overjoyed that Beca had both turned up to auditions and then blown just about everyone else out of the water with her performance. She wasn’t sure where the brunette was going when she asked for her pen cup but whatever she was thinking, she wasn’t thinking it would be used like it had.

Not only did she get to hear Beca sing again but their conversation after the auditions kept a smile on Chloe’s face for the rest of the day. It even survived the lecture she copped from Aubrey.

Aubrey had been quiet and snappy ever since Beca’s audition and she knew her well enough to recognise when Aubrey was angry at being proved wrong. Getting Beca into the Bella’s would be a little harder than Chloe may have originally thought but she was fully prepared to fight Aubrey all night if she had to.

They had already argued at the audition hall after Aubrey had seen her laughing with Beca. She wasn’t even a Bella yet, but Aubrey already saw her as an enemy. Chloe certainly had her work cut out for her in convincing her that Beca was essential to the Bella’s but she could be just as stubborn as Aubrey.

Her mind was made up and there was no way she was letting it go until Aubrey caved; the Bella’s would need Beca if they wanted to win and live down last year’s performance at Nationals.

“I think there were some strong possibilities in this year’s batch, don’t you?” Chloe may have used that as a bit of a cop out question, but Aubrey had been hunched over her Bella’s prep desk for the past thirty minutes.

It was concerning.

“I don’t know what that alt-girl was thinking. Who shows up to auditions that unprepared! We do not need someone like that in the Bella’s.” Chloe groaned internally. She really had wanted to work her way up to Beca but Aubrey had other ideas.

“She wasn’t really planning on coming to auditi-“

“Which means she doesn’t even care! I shouldn’t be surprised. I sensed that about her as soon as I saw her at the damn fair.” Aubrey was up and pacing now, her eyes wild as she gestured.

“Bree. She’s talented. She didn’t know the audition song, but she was easily one of the best there today and you know it too.” Chloe was busting out her calmest voice in the hopes of soothing that wild animal that was currently Aubrey.

There was a hint of firmness behind the calm though; no matter how much Aubrey was against it, Beca was going to be a Bella.

“What I know is that she will be the ruin of everything that I’ve built.” Aubrey had stopped pacing and was staring at the mantle where there should have been a trophy.

Chloe clenched her jaw and reigned in her own temper, “I thought it was what _we_ built. _Together_ , isn’t that supposed to be how this year was going to go?”

Aubrey dismissed it with a wave of her hand and resumed pacing. “You know what I mean Chloe. That girl is nothing but trouble. She doesn’t care about the Bella’s and upholding our sacred traditions.”

“You don’t know that Bree. I’ve spoken to her a couple of times now and I think that if you could both just start over again, you’d have a lot in common.” Chloe moved over to the desk and leaned back against it with her arms crossed so she didn’t start pacing herself.

“I have nothing in common with that girl.”

Chloe rolled her eyes and her words came out with a little more bite than her previous attempts, “Well, you’re both stubborn. Maybe you could argue about that.”

The redhead pushed off the table to stop the current pacing so that her words would actually break through her best friend’s stubborn haze of anger. “Come on Bree, you know that she was incredible. If we want to win then we are going to need the strongest group of Bella’s we can get. And that group is going to have to include Beca.”

“The hell it is.” Aubrey snorted.

“Aubrey. We need her. I’m not backing down on this. She’s in.” Chloe stood squarely in front of her best friend to illustrate her words as they locked eyes to see who was going to back down first.

Chloe won.

“Fine. She’s in.” Aubrey twisted her head away and almost growled the words out.

She stomped past Chloe to her Bella’s desk as Chloe released a sigh and started towards the kitchen to get something for her sore throat.

“Chloe,” Aubrey’s voice halted her progress, “When this girl ruins the Bella’s, when she ruins _you_ , just remember that I tried to stop this.”

Chloe took a moment to just stare at her friend before she calmly responded, “You’re wrong. She isn’t going to ruin the Bella’s and I don’t know why you’d think she’d ruin me.”

Chloe turned away from the sight as she continued onto the kitchen but tossed some parting words over her shoulder as she went.

“Don’t worry Bree, this is going to be our year.”

-

Chloe loved Hood Night. She always had a ball with adding to the Bella family and then the Hood Night party was always a blast.

The last few years, she and Aubrey had always been a collection team and they had a bet on how many of the new girls Chloe could befriend before they reached the hall. The loser was supposed to be the responsible one at the party, but Chloe always made sure Aubrey would end the night with the promise of a heavy hangover.

As much as she loved all her Hood Night traditions, Chloe knew that the fun Aubrey of the past would not be making an appearance. Instead, she was left with a tightly wound and highly stressed Aubrey who had rigid instructions regarding the initiation part of the night.

Chloe could still smell all of the varying candles she had spent the better part of the afternoon setting up and lighting. She’d done her best to relax Aubrey down at the same time. It was a very stressful afternoon and Chloe is very much looking forward to the party aspect of tonight.

As it was, she had reached the end of her Bella recruit list.

And it was one Beca Mitchell.

(She may or may not have specifically grabbed the list with Beca on it before Aubrey could stop her.)

Her knocking went unanswered for about seven minutes before Chloe just jimmied the handle and let herself in. She immediately saw why Beca didn’t get the door. Beca was asleep with her laptop propped open on her lap and headphones firmly placed over her ears.

Without any conscious input from her brain, Chloe was reaching out to gently grasp Beca’s shoulder, “Hey, wake up sleepyhead.”

“G’way.” Beca stirred but only enough to grumble lowly and swat loosely at Chloe’s hand.

Chloe only grinned at the adorable image presented to her and switched tacts, “Beca. David Guetta is here and you’re going to miss him.”

Chloe burst into laughter as soon as Beca jolted up and searched the room with wild eyes and a frantic energy. She was half out of the bed before the reality set in and she turned a scowl on the laughing redhead.

“That was mean.” Beca said as she began untangling herself from her headphones and laptop, “What are you even doing here? Are you actually stalking me?”

“I just wanted you to teach me that cup trick.” Chloe said playfully as she twirled around in Beca’s chair. She was reaching for a cup of usb’s before Beca smacked her hand away.

“Oh my god, how old are you? No. What time is it?” She felt blindly around her until she found her phone and then gave Chloe a sharp look, “Wait. How did you even get in here? I know I locked that door.”

“Mmhm. But you didn’t lock the window. You should get dressed.” Chloe delivered all of this calmly while Beca’s face grew more suspicious. She cut a disbelieving glance at the window which was, coincidentally, unlocked and slightly opened.

“Okay Spiderman. Mind telling me what exactly I’m getting dressed for?” Beca was already moving towards her closet as she spoke. Chloe entertained herself by inspecting Beca’s design scheme for her room.

She had learned that the decorations would often tell you a lot about a person. Beca had no pictures of herself and friends, just a lot of band posters and something that looked expensive hidden away under a couple of shirts and a pair of jeans.

She was impressed with the range of Beca’s music collection. There was some cd’s there that Chloe never would have pegged Beca to listen to. And this was only the CD’s so Chloe couldn’t imagine how much more was hidden away on her laptop and drives.

She was about to investigate some more when Beca’s head popped around her closet door, “This isn’t the part when you lure me into the wood and kill me right?”

“Nah, I only do that with the special girls.” Chloe laughed as Beca’s face dropped into shock.

“Oh, rude!”

“Kidding. You’d be plenty special if you would just hurry up and put this on your head too.” Chloe stood and threw the hood at Beca as she emerged from the closet.

Chloe could feel her smile widening as Beca looked at the hood in her hands and then back up at her with a particularly unimpressed look on her face. Chloe stepped in closer and put on her most innocent face.

She was really starting to enjoy teasing Beca at every opportunity, her reactions were just too much fun to pass up.

“What’s wrong? Don’t you trust me?” The words may have been said in an innocent tone but Chloe couldn’t keep her deeply amused grin from slipping through.

“I’ve known you for a week. And in that week not only have you jumped in on me mid-shower, completely naked by the way,” Beca’s incredulous voice was matched by frantic gestures that Chloe assumed were meant to indicate nudity. “But now you’ve also broken into my room. While I was sleeping.” Chloe opened her mouth to protest but had to concede the point and shrugged instead. “Hate to break it to you dude, but none of those things are very trustworthy.”

Chloe bit her lip as she ran through a mental list of her options. Beca was standing with her arms crossed expectantly when Chloe came upon her only real course of action.

She pouted.

Big, puppy dog eyes and a pleading smile. Some of her best work really. This pout had gotten her out of a lot of trouble in her time and would hopefully continue to do so.

Beca was starting to crack, Chloe could tell. Her arms kept fidgeting like they wanted to drop and her eyes kept dating away from Chloe’s face as she tried to stay strong.

“Ugh, fine. Just… stop pouting and giving me those eyes.” Beca’s eyes were fixed on the ceiling and her arms dropped in a huff as she admitted defeat. Chloe’s face immediately brightened, and she beamed at the defeated girl in front of her.

“Yay! Come on, it’s fun! I _promise_ you’re going to have the best time!” She bounced over to help Beca put the hood on and then began to lead her by the shoulders out the door.

“I want it known that I am doing this under prot- Ow!” Beca’s protest was cut off as she smacked into the doorway.

“Oops, sorry. That was just the door.”

“Oh yeah, I see what you mean Chlo. I’m having fun already.”

This wasn’t the first time someone had called her Chlo but she wouldn’t have been able to guess that from the way her entire body seemed to light up.

Hood Night was always one of her favourite events of the year and Beca was already becoming one of her favourite people (behind Aubrey and her family of course) so Chloe had high hopes for this Hood Night.

-

Beca was incredibly uncomfortable and had been ever since Chloe pulled the hood off her head. She had honestly not been uncomfortable when Chloe was guiding her out of her dorm and all across campus. There was probably something in that for her to look at but she couldn’t be bothered.

They had spent the entire time talking about the Bella’s and she was told about some of Chloe’s previous Hood Nights and the massive parties that went on. Beca could even be categorized as excited for the night ahead. She was glad for the hood covering her face because she hadn’t been able to stop smiling since they had left her room.

The discomfort kicked in when Chloe tugged the hood off to reveal, not only was Beca very, very close to a truly alarming number of candles, but she was also not alone. Aubrey’s eyes bored into her and a snide part of Beca’s brain wondered if she had lit all the candles with her fiery glare.

The night did not get better with that incredibly weird pledge or the “blood of the sisters” being passed around. She at least got to talk to some of her new teammates.

She tried to resist glancing over at Chloe but every time she did, the redhead was either already looking back or would look over quickly with an encouraging smile and a thumbs up that left Beca rolling her eyes.

(It definitely did not make joy swell in her chest or a smile pull at her face. It didn’t.)

She shouldn’t have been surprised that Jesse was at the party too.

She knew he could sing from their time in the radio station. He would start humming a song and Beca would shake her head and refuse to tap out the beat she was already mixing in her head, he took this as a challenge and would then outright sing at her until Luke came and sent him to get lunch.

Beca tried to resist being charmed but she was unable to fight the grin that had formed on her face. It was an expression that she was starting to associate with Jesse just because of how often she would end up cracking a grin or huffing a laugh at his expense.

“Can I get you a drink? I’m going to get you a drink. You need a drink. You need to get on this level.”

Jesse’s grin was a little spacey and his eyes were a little glazed but Beca was still left grinning at him as he climbed back over the benches. She hated to admit it to herself, but the dude was growing on her.

She was so absorbed in watching Jesse slowly clamber back down the rows that she completely missed Chloe until she was forcefully pulled into a body that was quickly becoming familiar.

Chloe dashing up to her came as a bit of a shock. Beca had no idea how she had gotten so drunk in the brief time they had been apart, she had made Chloe swear that she was sober before she let her lead her around the campus blindfolded.

But here she was now, grabbing Beca’s hands and pulling so fast that Beca felt herself falling into the redhead before the stone separating them saved her. Not that it made much difference as Chloe was already leaning in and looking at Beca so openly and earnestly.

“I am really glad that I met you,” Every word was punctuated by a tug at her hands and a thumb stroking across her skin and leaving her tingling. Beca felt like she couldn’t breathe with how close Chloe was.

She was pretty sure that Chloe was about to rest her forehead against hers but instead the redhead ducked her head down and caught Beca’s eye. “I think we’re going to be really fast friends.”

“Yeah.” Beca cursed herself a little for how breathy and soft that had sounded but Chloe was right there, and she was pulling her in again and Beca wasn’t really thinking too clearly.

She had no idea what her body was doing but Chloe’s eyes, while glazed and a little unfocused, were holding steady onto Beca and she was still clutching to her hands. She guessed that she wasn’t doing too badly.

“Well, you saw me naked so…” With an uncharacteristic surge of courage, Beca added a wink to her flirty statement. Chloe brightened visibly and Beca is pretty sure that she legitimately just bounced in joy.

Beca had thought that maybe she had somehow messed up when Chloe let go of her hands. She was reassured when instead of letting go and walking away, Chloe stepped in even closer and ran her hands down Beca’s entire arm. She squeezed her hands once more before letting go and taking a step back.

As soon as she let go, Beca was already missing the tingling that seemed to overtake her entire body when Chloe was touching her. She could have sworn that it wasn’t actually this cold a minute ago but the shiver that overtook her body could only be attributed to a wave of cold air.

“Alright, I’m going to go get another drink. This ginger needs her jiggle juice!”

Beca’s pretty sure that her brain just short circuited. Chloe flounced off but not before shaking her ass directly at Beca.

Beca, who was left with nothing but a meek farewell as she watched ginger hair skip down into the throng of people.

She was considering moving down into the same throng when a tall, wobbly figure in red caught her eye. On closer inspection, it was Jesse trying to hold two full cups steady with his unsteady hands as he clambered over to Beca. He was happy and carefree in a similar way to Chloe. Beca was really starting to get confused with how she seemed to attract this kind of happy people.

She took a gulp of her drink and then followed Jesse down into the crowd around the laptop and those weird couple of guys who were running the audition. Jesse was a willing decoy to help get Beca to the laptop and its open music library.

With the way the laptop was being guarded, she thought that she would have to try pretty hard to get one on one with the laptop until suddenly the crowd seemed to thin out. Jesse took that as a sign to start distracting and slipped off towards Justin as he hummed his own stealth music.

Beca snuck up to the laptop, waiting to be caught until she saw Stacie out of the corner of her eye. It looked like she was demonstrating the proper technique for body rolls, something which was keeping a large group very distracted. Cynthia Rose slipped passed Beca to strike up a conversation with a few of the remainders and waved her towards the suddenly available laptop with a wink and nod.

Between Jesse, Cynthia Rose, and especially Stacie’s distractions, she was able to get a good queue going.

The rest of the night was spent with good music and cheap beer, something Jesse and Cynthia Rose argued were necessities to forming group bonds. Beca rolled her eyes but joined them both on belting the chorus of the next song.

She thinks it might be friendship.

-

Chloe was trying.

She was trying so hard to keep Aubrey together. As well as trying to keep the Bella’s motivated and somewhat enthused about the competition.

And then she found out that she had nodes and it just felt like everything was just falling apart faster than she could hold it together. Then the Bella’s rehearsals were going nothing like they had planned. They weren’t ready for their gig, which they were then booed out of and Chloe was still couldn’t get her head around the fact that she had nodes.

She had noticed that her throat was aching more often and that it felt like her voice was straining in rehearsals, but she had chalked it up to stress. The doctors were concerned about her continuing to sing but Chloe knew that she could never leave Aubrey alone like that.

Especially this Aubrey who was acting even more controlling and insane then the Aubrey’s of the years past. And she could never let her Bella’s down like that. They were all so talented and Chloe could feel that this misfit Bella’s outfit was something special.

They needed someone to guide them and that was Chloe’s job. Nodes was nothing compared to keeping Aubrey together after a choreography session where Amy insists on adding her own freestyling so that her “raw sexual energy can sway the judges”. 

Chloe couldn’t give the Bella’s up. Not even for her own health. She loves to sing, and she loves the Bella’s more. Choosing between them and a surgery that honestly scared her a little, Chloe didn’t even blink before choosing them.

When the time came for her to finally have to tell Aubrey, it was rough.

She should have known that Aubrey would handle this like she handled everything; with unrelenting determination and organisation. Aubrey was quiet and kept hold of her hand the entire way home that night, something that doesn’t happen outside of an emergency. They got through the door and Aubrey was immediately googling ways to combat and lessen the strain on her voice.

It could sometimes be very hard to be Aubrey’s best friend but times like these, when Aubrey was running out to the store and coming back to make her tea which was supposed to help. Chloe really appreciated that she had someone to lean on.

Chloe could definitely feel the toll that nodes was taking on her vocally and could tell that it was affecting the performance. She had taken to coming to practice even earlier to try and warm her voice up more.

She didn’t think anyone had noticed but one morning Beca was waiting outside the auditorium with a large tea for her. It was the same type that Aubrey had decided was the best for her voice after charting the benefits of each type for an hour.

A smile broke across her face at the thought of Beca caring enough to research nodes and their effect. Chloe could only pat herself on the back for not giving up on that angelic voice in the showers.

-

“What can you tell me about a riff off?”

The familiar voice brought Chloe out of her own world as she studied on the quad. She looked up from her position on the ground to find Beca staring at her expectantly as she fiddled with her bag strap.

“The riff off? Why do you want to know about the riff off? I thought you said that all acapella is lame." Chloe raised an eyebrow causing Beca to roll her eyes and turn her head away.

“I did say that. And now that I am in an acapella group myself, I feel like I should at least learn what exactly I let you talk me into.” Chloe smiled at the image Beca presented.

With her arms crossed and her head constantly swivelling to look at anyone but Chloe, most would assume that she wouldn't want to be there. Chloe could see the way that no matter where Beca's head was turning, her eyes would always come back to looking at Chloe.

“'Let me'? Please, you love being a Bella. I’ve seen the passion you put into those hand squares.” Chloe laughed.

“You got me. I’m secretly gunning to steal Aubrey’s spot and have the Bella’s all to myself.” The sarcastic delivery was undercut by the smile that was tugging at the edges of her lips.

“You’re forgetting something Mitchell.”

“And what’s that Beale?”

“I’m next in line for the Bella captaincy. You wouldn’t know the first thing about being an acapella captain.” Chloe lounged back onto her elbows and stretched out in the sunlight.

Beca felt her mouth run dry but refused to look away when the redhead opened her eyes and she caught the hint of challenge in those blue eyes.

“Is the first thing that you shouldn’t only sing songs from a time before you were even born?” Beca always did have a problem with backing down from challenges.

Teasing banter with Chloe was no different but Beca was only just starting to realise that she may have met her match in the redhead.

Chloe eyed her seriously before sitting up and sighing, “Aubrey really does have a plan.”

"Sure, she does. It probably involves sacrificing the souls she collected on Hood Night.” Beca scoffed before flopped gracelessly onto the ground next to Chloe.

“This riff off thing isn’t going to have a weird culty oath like Hood Night, right?” Chloe made a noise of protest that had Beca propping herself up on her elbows with a raised eyebrow.

“Blood of the sisters-“

“Boones Farm.” Chloe interrupted but Beca ignored it with a slight smirk.

“- And vocal chords ripped out by wolves. Sounds like a cult to me, Chlo,” Beca leaned up onto one elbow and looked at Chloe with mock sincerity. “Blink twice if you need help. Don’t worry Chloe, we can save you.”

Chloe snorted and settled in close to Beca with her own smirk. “And what makes you think I’m not the cult leader, hmm?” Beca already felt like she couldn’t breathe with the low tone of Chloe’s voice so close to her face. “Do you not think I’m charismatic enough?" With each question Chloe’s voice seemed to get lower and her face more suggestive. "Am I not persuasive enough for you Beca?”

“You were doing just fine in the shower.” On one hand, Beca was insanely proud she had managed actual words in an actual sentence to respond to Chloe’s onslaught.

On the other hand, Beca was distraught because now she had the image of Chloe in the shower combined with Chloe’s words and voice right now.

“Beca!" Chloe surged up and pushed at Beca's shoulder causing her to fall back onto the ground as Chloe hovered above her with a teasing grin.

Beca just closed her eyes and accepted her inevitable defeat. She should have known that bringing up the shower fiasco wouldn’t beat Chloe.

She didn’t even have the courtesy to at least blush before turning Beca into an ugly beetroot colour. "Are you suggesting that I’m more persuasive naked?”

Any pride at being able to deliver complete words and sentences went out the window as Beca just stared at Chloe with her mouth opening until she could stammer out an “Oh”.

“Save that kind of talk for when we’re alone babe.” With a wink she was gone. As if she hadn’t just broken Beca and left her stammering out on the grass, watching her flounce away.

That redhead would be the death of her. She was sure of it.

And she still didn't find out anything about the riff-off.

Dammit.

-

"Alright! We will pick this up next practice. I expect you all to memorise your parts for our setlist."

The farewell came as all of the Bella's filed out of the auditorium after their practice, Aubrey sent Chloe a tight smile before she too powered out of the auditorium.

This left her alone to pack up after practice, giving her the time to mentally run though their efforts and figure out where they needed to improve.

So far, there were a lot of areas for improvement. Like, a number that would crumble most people (Aubrey) but not Chloe. She was confident that this team could pull it all together to win, she knew they could do it.

They were her Bella’s. Technically Aubrey’s, but Aubrey wasn’t the one who got a call at 2am when CR and Stacie lost Lily in a rundown construction site. (Chloe had found her in a dark stairwell. It took an hour for the terror to leave her body.)

She had just cleared off the whiteboard when she heard an odd scuffling behind her. It was Beca, who was trying to lift a stack of the chairs, Chloe felt an unbidden smile come to her lips at the determined scowl on the girls face as she seemed to fight the chairs the entire way.

When she finally made it, her look of determination settled into triumph and when she turned to come back for the next lot, there was a certain spring in her step that Chloe was pretty sure was pride.

“Showing those chairs who’s boss, Becs?” Chloe made sure that her amusement was coming through loud and clear in her tone.

She had found that teasing Beca not only was a great way to spend her time, but also could be used to work the surly DJ out of her shell.

“After what those chairs would have gone through under Aubrey’s regime of terror? I imagine I’m nothing but a holiday to these chairs.” Chloe rolled her eyes before moving to help the smaller girl.

“You should definitely tell Aubrey that next practice.”

“Yeah, right. Cause that’s worked out so well for you right?”

Chloe felt like she had been sucker-punched. She could see how Beca immediately regretted saying it, but she was still hurt.

She was just so tired.

Tired of having to take Aubrey’s insanity and turn it into something that people would actually respond to. Tired of having to constantly be wary of using her voice, and tired of the field of eggshells that the apartment had turned into.

Usually Aubrey would at least pretend to listen to one of Chloe’s ideas before she shut it down. She had only gotten worse in the past few months, and now Chloe would open her mouth and Aubrey shut her down quickly.

Her inability to do her solo only made the tension worse.

Chloe knew that Beca was chomping at the bit to get some new material in for the Bella’s. She knew because every time they would hang out, (far away from Aubrey and without her knowledge) Beca would bring it up.

Chloe is ecstatic that Beca seems to have caught the aca-bug, but she would also really like a break from having to run interference. But there’s hope in Beca’s eyes when she looks at her so Chloe goes to Aubrey and she _tries._ She really does but Aubrey won’t hear a word of it.

And that’s hard enough to deal with by itself without having Beca throw it back in her face.

Beca’s face was a mix of regretful and fearful. Like she was scared Chloe would hit back just as hard, with something just as unfair. “Shit. Chloe, look, I-I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it and I was just being an asshole.”

“Yeah, you were.” She kept her face impassive and just stared at the girl in front of her before sighing and slumping into one of the chairs. “You’re not entirely wrong though. There’s just a lot of pressure on her, y’know? She’s captain, that whole thing from last year still haunts her and it’s her last year. She’s just… wrapped a little tight, is all.”

Beca drags a chair up to face her and sits down gently. “Doesn’t give her a right to be a dick to you though.”

Chloe watches as Beca shifts in her chair and looks down at her hands, something that usually means Beca is about to drop her walls a little bit. “You’re basically in the same boat, if I were her I would be clinging to you like one of Amy’s secret koala’s.”

Classic Beca, burying sincere and vulnerable statements under humour. Chloe wasn’t surprised. This wasn’t the first time Beca had opened up to her.

By now Chloe had learned that Beca handled these conversations best when she wasn’t pushed, so Chloe just smiled and moved along. “Should we call someone about them by the way? I really don’t think that they’re safe. Or even legal.”

“I sincerely doubt that they are either of those things,” Beca shrugged. “But Cynthia Rose said she would handle it and Lily just kind of smiled, but in a really creepy way. I think between those two, Amy is handled as much as she can be.”

“She’s just strong-willed.”

“That’s a word for it.” Beca nodded, “I would have used ‘potentially, definitely, insane’ myself. But hey, that’s just me.”

“I’m at least 60% sure that she’s not certifiable.”

“Which is comforting. Aubrey however…”

Chloe snorted before gently swatting at Beca’s shoulder. “Stop! She’s not insane either, no one’s insane. We’re all just a perfectly sane group of sisters singing-“

“-Mariah Carey chart toppers. I know.” They smiled at each other in silence for a second before Chloe broke it.

“Exactly. There’s no room for crazy in a Mariah song.”

Beca raised an incredulous eyebrow before the redhead broke and they both fell into laughter. Their laughter ends when Chloe’s voice begins to croak and then breaks.

Beca watches on with a concerned frown as the redhead rubs at her throat absently. “Nodes acting up?”

“Hmm? Oh yeah. Practice can take it out of me a bit now.” Chloe looks away from her searching eyes and continues to try and soothe her throat.

“Well, are you drinking your tea?” Beca was now the one who wouldn’t meet her eyes. She instead focused heavily on her fidgeting fingers and missed the soft look Chloe was giving her.

“I am, which was a very thoughtful gesture. I really liked it.” She reached out and rested her hand on Beca’s fidgeting fingers.

“It wasn’t that great. I just didn’t want you to constantly be in pain while performing.” Beca glanced up a couple of times but could never hold Chloe’s eyes for long. Chloe never released her hand though. “The Bella’s are already in enough trouble without our spiritual leader tearing her own vocal chords out mid-song.”

“Graphic.”

“I’ve been spending some time with Lily.”

The redhead nods in understanding and leans back into her chair. She was about to take her hand away but Beca squeezed her hand and held on tightly. She smiled and looked up only to see her deliberately not looking at their joined hands.

Chloe couldn’t help but smile at her emotionally stunted friend who held tight to her hand. Even if she would never acknowledge it.

“I’m not going to rip my own vocal chords out. Though my stupid solo makes me almost wish I could.”

Chloe could hear the frustration in her own voice but there was very little she could do to change it. She was stressed, she was in pain and she was left unable to do something that she loved.

“It’s the last few high notes. I just can’t hit them.” She rubbed her forehead with her free hand as she tried to hold back her frustration. “It’s hurts enough when I have to do the rest of that song but those last few are just too far.” She felt something on her other hand and glanced down to see Beca’s thumb rubbing back and forth as she looked at Chloe with concerned eyes.

Chloe slumped forward and met Beca’s concern with resignation. “I just have to… I have to pull back. Because I’m limited. Because I have nodes.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Chloe saw a small smile form on Beca’s face. She tried to stifle it when she caught Chloe’s eyes but she couldn’t.

“I’m sorry, it’s just… Do you actually say that in the mirror every morning?” Beca’s smile only grew and despite herself, Chloe huffed out a chuckle.

 She leaned forward and rested her chin on her free hand and gazed at a smiling Beca before an idea struck. Beca, still smiling (Could be a record, she’ll have to time it later,) watched as Chloe’s expression changed and she stared at Beca with intent and a hint of mischief in her eyes. “You know, you would make a great soloist.”

Beca scoffed but Chloe tugged at her hands as she laughed lightly, “No, I’m serious!” Her look changed again and her voice dropped into a deeper octave, “And we both know how well you can hit those notes solo. And how well you can harmonise with company.”

Beca immediately flushes and pulls her hands away from a laughing Chloe. She tries to stammer out a response but can’t get any words out. She tries to silence Chloe’s laughter with a pointed hand but Chloe just laughs harder and Beca ends up with a flustered pout as she waits out the redhead’s laughter.

“You’re too easy!” Chloe laughs and grabs Beca’s hand again while the DJ rolls her eyes. “I really am serious about the solo though. You would be really amazing Becs.”

“Not as good as you though.” Chloe felt her cheeks warm as Beca said the words with conviction.

“Don’t be silly, you’ve definitely got what it takes.” Beca was shaking her head before Chloe even finished her sentence.

“You have to do it Chloe. You’re amazing and you deserve this solo more than anyone.” Chloe grinned and squeezed her hands in thanks before pulling her hands away.

“And that means a lot Beca, but I can’t do it. I have faith that you could though. You could easily be a soloist on our victory quest.” Aubrey had christened their aca-campaign a ‘victory quest’ and insisted that they all used it but most of the Bella’s had resisted strongly.

Beca snorted and shook her head. “One; I’m not calling it that. And two; the only way I’m soloing under our illustrious dictator is if I can choose a new song and make an arrangement for it. Something that Aubrey will never allow.”

“Beca.”

Beca waved her hand to acknowledge Chloe’s admonishment before she glanced at the time and jolted from her seat. “Oh my God! I have to go! I have to go right now! I’m going to be late to my shift at the station!”

Chloe’s startled confusion switched immediately and she shooed Beca towards the door. “Go! Get out of here!”

Beca headed towards the door but turned back and looked at the mess she was leaving. “But what about all of this?”

“Beca, I’ve got this under control.” Chloe rolled her eyes and kept nudging a reluctant Beca away. “Go and stack some cd’s, the station definitely needs it.”

Beca gasped in mock offense. “If I didn’t have to leave right now I would have a response to that.”

“I’ll assume it was something biting and witty.”

“It always is. See you later Chlo.” Beca left with a smirk.

“Bye Becs.” Chloe whispered as Beca disappeared.

She stood alone and watched as Beca left before turning back to the mess of the Bella’s.

-

(The solo went to Amy. She ripped her clothes off on stage. Chloe didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.)

-

Regionals ends with Beca in jail.

So, there’s that.

-

Chloe tried to stop her.

She really did. But if there’s one thing that she’s learned about friendship with Beca, it’s that she will never leave you to struggle alone.

And Jesse was clearly struggling.

When the cop begins to lead Beca away, she looks up to the huddle of the Bella’s and catches Chloe’s eyes. Chloe moves forward to try and reach Beca but is suddenly pulled back by Aubrey who has a fierce grip on her shoulder with nails that are probably breaking skin.

“I told you Chloe. She’s going to ruin this” Aubrey’s voice was tight and her gaze cold enough to have a few of their surrounding Bella’s taking a step back.

Chloe didn’t even blink before shaking her shoulder free. “She hasn’t ruined anything. She makes us better and you know it.”

“ _I know_ that she’s being taken away! In _handcuffs_ Chloe! Does _that_ make us better?” Aubrey’s snarl was starting to draw attention from the surrounding crowd.

The tension between them was reaching a tipping point and everyone could feel it. Chloe and Aubrey were locked into a battle of wills on who would be the first to break their stare down.

“Um, hey, excuse me?” Jesse was the one to break their stare down as he gingerly nudged into their space. Aubrey’s head snapped over to glare at him and Chloe raised an eyebrow at the man who was now clearly regretting his interruption.

“Well?” Aubrey snapped as Jesse froze.

Chloe cut her a glare and stepped further into Jesse’s eye line, “What is it Jesse?”

With one last wary glance at a fuming Aubrey, Jesse clearly decided that Chloe was the safer option and faced her. “I was just going to let you know that I can go wait for Beca at the station. And then you can, um, handle things here.”

Chloe opened her mouth to thank him but tell him that she was going to the station when Aubrey stepped forward and cut her off.

“Yes, thank you…” Aubrey trailed off after realising that she didn’t actually know his name.

“Oh! Jesse!”

“Thank you, Jesse. I’m sure Beca will appreciate you there.” Chloe was angry at Aubrey’s decision to step in but she couldn’t blame Jesse when he gave them a shaky smile and then scampered off.

She was so distracted by her own anger at Aubrey for stopping her from going to her friends’ aid that she didn’t notice the odd tone in Aubrey’s voice when talking to Jesse about Beca.

Chloe turned to Aubrey sharply but she had already started to round up the remaining Bella’s. Chloe took a step towards her but felt a hand grab her elbow.

It was Stacie.

“I know you’re angry, but here isn’t really the time or the place.”

“Stacie-“

“I know, trust me, I get it. I’m angry too, we’re her friends and we should be there with her but Jesse’s got this and Amy is still missing.” Stacie’s earnest face was compelling, even with how angry Chloe was. Not only was Stacie surprisingly compelling but she was also right.

Chloe heaved a sigh and cut one last look back to Aubrey who was already ordering Jessica and Ashley around.

“Chloe.” Cynthia Rose called from just behind Stacie and with both of their expectant faces Chloe knew she wouldn’t win this battle. She sighed once more and turned down the hall Amy had taken off running in.

“We’ll start here. Someone get a location on Lily and make sure she doesn’t take off either. If we find Amy quickly we can be back at the campus by the time Beca’s out.” Chloe led the both of them down the hall and for a second, she felt like a leader.

And then she remembered how she had let her friend be taken to the police station and hadn’t even gone with her. That deflated her a fair bit.

“I just got off the phone with Jessica and Ashley, we’re all down for waiting for Beca in her room when we get back.” Chloe turned to look at Cynthia Rose who was looking back expectantly.

“What?” Confused, Chloe looked between Stacie and Cynthia Rose who were both looking at her like she was a few steps behind the ball.

“I told you Chloe,” Chloe turned to Stacie who looked more determined than Chloe had ever seen her. “We’re her friends and we should be there for her.”

“Okay. Okay, good.” Chloe nodded twice and spun on her heel before marching down the hall at a quicker pace than before. The sound of the steps echoing off the walls let her know that Stacie and CR were right behind her.

“Let’s find Amy and get out of here.”

-

Beca was having a shitty night.

First, she gets arrested for something that she didn’t even do. Then, the only person that showed up at the station was Jesse (who brought her dad, of all the people he could have called, he calls her fucking dad).

And to top it all off her team, _who she got arrested_ _for,_ didn’t even show up or leave her a message. Which left Beca getting lectured by her father the entire drive back to campus without even a text of support from her friends to help her through.

Beca was having a supremely shitty night.

So, when she finally reached her dorm room, all she was thinking about was how much she longed for this night to be over. The last thing she was expecting was the entire Bella team in her room waiting up for her.

“Of course, we waited up for you!” She should have known that Chloe wouldn’t just leave her to be arrested alone. Still, she couldn’t help but feel charmed by the soft look on the redhead’s face.

Her night was turning around after just a few minutes with the Bella’s.

Maybe Chloe had a point about the whole ‘tight sisterhood’ thing. Aubrey immediately took the opportunity to steamroll any bonding that was taking place.

Normally Beca would let anyone but Chloe in on the fact that she actually cared about and had opinions on acapella. But the entire time she was in her holding cell, she distracted herself with focusing on how they could improve after Regionals.

Any excitement she had been feeling about acapella was drained quickly when Aubrey seemed more determined than ever to cling to their traditional setlist and choreography.

“I didn’t know you were into this sort of stuff.” Beca grinned at the undercurrent of excitement in Chloe’s voice.

Not that she really needed Chloe’s voice to tell. The redhead was already leaning over her and looking through her file names. Beca could see her fingers twitch towards the keyboard and supressed a smirk because she knew Chloe was itching to go through her library.

Aubrey somehow tightened her grip on the control of the Bella’s and even though Chloe tries, she will not be deterred. Beca starts to feel guilty about all the times she propped Chloe up to go head to head with Aubrey, especially with how quickly and brutally she got shut down.

From that moment on, Beca kind of ignored everything that Aubrey was saying. She was distracted by trying to count up how many times Chloe seems to have gone in to bat for the rest of the Bella’s when it came to Aubrey.

She only shook herself out of her daze as the Bella’s began to file out of her room. Chloe made to leave too but Beca quickly placed a hand on her elbow, causing the redhead to look down with a confused smile.

“I just wanted to say thanks. For, y’know, waiting up for me. I mean, when I came out at the station Jesse had said he was the only one there,” Beca rambled on gaining pace as she went along with frantic hand gestures. “But you were here and then there was that whole thing with Aubrey which I know must have sucked and-“

“Becs. It’s fine, you don’t have to thank me.” Beca couldn’t understand why Chloe looked so sad and inched closer to nudge her hand against the redheads’. She was met with an appreciative look from shining blue eyes. “I shouldn’t have left you in the first place, but we had to find Amy and Jesse said he had your back.”

She shook her head and ran her hand from her forehead through her hair. Beca then realised that it was a sign of Chloe’s frustration getting the best of her. “But still, I should have sent you a text or _something._ And as for Bree… I can handle her but thanks.”

Beca couldn’t help but return the bright smile that she received as the redhead leant back against the table. Beca shuffled a little in her chair which knocked some of the wires of her equipment over, Chloe caught them and gently returned them to their original place.

She then turned those hypnotic eyes on Beca and tilted her head, (Beca’s heart skipped a beat but that was just because of her equipment). “Anyway, how come I didn’t know about any of this mixing stuff?”

She shifted a little more in her chair and fiddled with some of the mixing knobs in front of her.

Anything to distract her from the draw of curious eyes and a beaming smile. “I don’t know, I just thought maybe you wouldn’t be into it. Or something like that. I don’t know.”

“Like how you thought I wouldn’t be into David Guetta?”

“Yeah, kinda like that.” Beca laughed and watched as Chloe picked through the mess of her desk and came up with a pair of headphones.

“Can I listen?” Beca was taken aback for a second. Most people would have just put the headphones on but here was Chloe, asking permission to pass through another of Beca’s emotional walls.

She was giving Beca all the power but right from that first moment Beca’s walls never stood a chance against the redhead or the Bella’s that came with her.

“Um, yeah, sure. Where do you want to start?”

Chloe slid the headphones on as she shot her a wicked smirk, “Got any Guetta?”

“Ha, ha.” Beca hurriedly queued up some of her favourite mixes before standing and moving towards her closet. “I’m going to go and wash the jail off of me.”

Chloe began to take the headphones off but Beca shook her head. “No, you can stay and listen. If you want. I won’t be long.”

The redhead beamed and fixed the headphones back into place. “I’ll be here whenever you’re ready.”

Beca chuckled and moved to the door before turning to take one last look.

Sitting at her desk, Chloe already had her eyes shut and hands pressed over the headphones, as if that could get her closer to the music. She may not have been aware of it, but she was already dancing in her chair a little bit.

Beca smiled as she closed the door.

-

She really should have expected Chloe’s support to look something like this.

First, Chloe made Beca give her the usb’s with her mixes on them, so she could listen to them all. Beca then got a breakdown of which ones made Chloe’s list of all-time favourites. (And even her list of lady jams, though Beca tried to avoid that.)

And then somehow Beca’s mixes were becoming more popular among the Bella’s. Beca kept catching some of them humming or tapping the beats to some of her mixes.

She really shouldn’t have been surprised that Chloe had gotten to Luke.

It turns out that Luke and Aubrey had a fling in sophomore year and they first met then. But because Chloe is Chloe, she’s invited to 85% of the parties on campus. Parties that Luke is often also invited to.

It was at one of these parties that Beca assumes Chloe; first, cornered Luke, and second, essentially nagged and gently bullied him into listening to some of Beca’s mixes that Chloe keeps on her phone.

And then Luke goes back to the station and listens to the rest of her mixes. A little because of Chloe’s insistence but mainly because he too had been wowed by her work.

Either way, Beca had been finishing getting ready for Semi-Finals when her phone blew up with notifications. A quick glance revealed why, Chloe had posted in the Bella group chat for everyone to tune into the campus station because Beca was on.

Confused, Beca had tuned into the campus station and instantly lost her mind.

She was running across campus when she rang Chloe who just straight up screamed in her ear for two minutes. Beca’s words were coming out of her mouth faster than she could make sense of them. Chloe seemed to be doing fine though because the redhead was just alternating between screaming and making excited exclamations. 

By the time Beca actually reached the station, all she had gotten out of Chloe was; “I ran into Luke and played him your music because it’s the best.”

Her interaction with Jesse and Luke wasn’t really any clearer. That could also be because Beca had finally heard her own mix on the radio after nearly a year of trying to get something. And not only that but she was offered a gig as station DJ for the break.

Nothing could possibly bring Beca down after a day this good.

Boy, was she wrong.

-

She really thought that this was going to be their year.

Their performance was not good enough to get them through their competition and she knew that.

Unfortunately for everyone, Aubrey knew that too. And though they may be feeling the similar sort of emotions, Aubrey was never good at dealing with her own disappointment. All of her disappointment was quickly shifted into anger and blame at Beca.

Chloe knew that Beca thought she was helping but her spontaneous inclusion did more harm than good. Something that Beca soon found out once Aubrey started snapping at her. She knew that this would never end well for the team with the tension and emotions swirling between the Bella’s at the moment.

“No, it’s fine. We don’t have to pretend you have a say, right?”

Well.

It’s not the first time Beca’s brought it up but it’s the first time she’s done it with the intention to hurt Chloe.

She knows that Beca’s only lashing out because she feels the full weight of their loss has backed her into a corner. She _knows_ that. But Chloe has her own disappointment, and she’s had enough of the messenger being shot between both Aubrey and Beca. She takes a step back, away from Beca and away from Aubrey.

She’s had enough. She’s done.

Chloe stands back and watches as Jesse gets caught in the crossfire as well. She feels a twinge of guilt as she watches his face fall after Beca snaps at him as well.

For a second Chloe feels a camaraderie with Jesse when she can see him resolve himself to step away as well.

“If this is what I get for trying…” Chloe watches passively as Beca storms off.

For the second time this year, she watches as Beca leaves before she turns around to fix the mess of the Bella’s that Beca had left behind.

Aubrey squares her shoulders and lifts her chin as if she’s won a victory. Chloe knows that this wasn’t a victory for anyone. She turns to the Bella’s who are just standing there watching in shock and disappointment.

“Should we go after her?” Amy’s uncertain voice broke the tense silence that had fallen upon them.

Aubrey’s head snapped around to face her with a fierce look. “No! Why would we go after her? She’s a quitter and we don’t need her.”

She marched back down to the curtain. Her words did nothing to motivate the Bella’s and left a few of them shooting looks at Chloe.

She sighed and forced a weak smile onto her face before facing them. “Let’s go, guys. We can go and wait for the scores backstage.”

Her voice is scratchy and sounds almost as painful as it feels.

She doesn’t know what is more painful for her right now, the actual pain in her vocal chords or the emotional pain of another loss and everything happening with Beca.

Chloe uses adjusting her Bella scarf as an excuse to rub at her throat but it does nothing to relieve the pain. She is suddenly aware that their season is over, she no longer has any logical reason to continue fighting the pain.

Cynthia Rose breaks her out of her thoughts. “But- But what about Beca?”

Chloe’s smile fell as she looked back at the exit door before facing Cynthia Rose. “Beca wants to be alone and we have to stick together when these scores come back.”

She saw the grimaces and the downtrodden faces in response to her words. Stacie bit her lip anxiously and cast a furtive glance at the exit door but she and Cynthia Rose nodded slowly and began the slow walk back to the curtain.

The Bella’s all fell into line behind and followed them down the hall as Chloe trails at the end. Tears welled in her eyes as she made a decision. Pain radiated from her throat but Chloe grit her teeth and caught up with the other dejected Bella’s.

She really thought that this was going to be their year.

-

When Beca started at Barden, all she wanted was to be left alone so she could just make it through the year and move to LA. She now has everything she wanted at the start of the year. She has the isolation she so dearly desired and she’s a few measly months away from finishing her first year and getting out to LA.

She has everything she wanted.

So, why does she always feel terrible?

She wanted to be alone after everything at Semi-Finals and she finally got it. She ignored every attempt at contact from the Bella’s, it took them two and a half weeks to stop trying. When her phone finally stopped buzzing, Beca pretended that she didn’t feel as horrible as her victory but that wasn’t true.

All Beca had left was hollow victories, her pride and the radio station.

So, she convinced herself that she needed nothing else. Not acapella, not Jesse and _definitely_ not the Bella’s.

-

If asked, Chloe would say that all of her nerves and the dread milling in her stomach were just about the Bella’s and their tenuous position in the acapella Nationals. That was the only reason.

It absolutely did not have anything to do with the unanswered text in her phone.

Chloe knew she probably looked odd to her family over break when she always lunged for her phone at the slightest ring but the Bella’s needed Beca. Her first night back in Barden, Chloe admitted to herself that maybe she needed Beca too.

Aubrey still seemed like the Crazy Captain Aubrey and not Chloe’s Best Friend Aubrey. Which really sucked because Chloe could use a best friend right now. Her doctors had told her about the effect the surgery could have had on her voice and Chloe was scared.

She was scared that she wouldn’t be able to sing like she used to. She was scared that, even if she sounded the same, it wouldn’t even matter because Aubrey would tear them apart before they could ever really come together.

So, she sent another text and hoped she wasn’t wrong about Beca.

She was, however, right about Aubrey.

The Bella’s practice was a disaster and quickly turned to uncontrollable chaos. Chloe was a little busy fighting Aubrey and Amy for the pitch pipe, so she didn’t see Beca’s arrival until after Aubrey shoved Amy off and grabbed the pie with a strength Chloe didn’t know she had.

Of course, Aubrey was dramatic as hell about the entire situation. Chloe could feel their chances of success being dragged away along with Beca’s chair.

They also really had to stop with the chair thing. It was more annoying than anything else.

Sitting in a circle and sharing secrets seemed cliché but it actually seemed to be working. No one heard whatever it is Lily said but she looked better after she said it, so Chloe marked it down as a win.

Stacie’s really doesn’t count as a secret, but she nailed the delivery. Cynthia Rose’s confession was derailed by Amy who actually turned out to be Patricia, and then it was Beca’s turn.

“I’ve never been one of those girls who has a lot of girl friends,” Beca’s eyes flicked up towards Chloe who smiled encouragingly. Beca breathed in and finished in a rush, “And now I am. And that’s pretty cool. So that’s me, someone else go now please.”

Breathing in deeply, Chloe closed her eyes and stood up to tell everyone about her surgery. Halfway through, Chloe felt her suppressed emotions swirl up at the thought of potentially letting her teammates down.

She collapsed into her seat and Aubrey was already reaching for her hand and squeezing tightly, giving her something to hold on to. Chloe took comfort in knowing that even if she lost most of her singing ability then at least Aubrey would still be there to cling to.

And then Beca was in charge and leading them back to the empty pool.

-

“You brought us to a pool?”

Beca jumps as a voice sounds from behind her. Chloe is clearly holding back laughter when she turns around.

“Yeah? I don’t know, it just made sense to me.” She shrugs and looks away from Chloe’s sceptical face.

“An empty pool. Of course, how could I miss its connection to acapella.”

“Oh my god, stop.” Beca rolls her eyes and looks around the pool. She looks anywhere but Chloe really. “This is where it happened for me,” She finally looks at Chloe but is met with a confused tilt of the head. “The riff-off.”

“We lost.”

“Yeah but remember when I was singing No Diggity?” Beca regretted the words as soon as she saw the teasing glint in Chloe’s eyes.

“Trust me, it was hard to forget.” Beca stuttered a little as Chloe’s voice dropped a little and got huskier.

Beca rolled her eyes when the redhead broke into a cheeky smile. “Ugh, you are the worst.”

Chloe laughs as Beca shakes her head. Beca was so busy pretending to be unaffected that she completely missed the redhead moving until she felt another hand take hold of her own.

Beca looked down at their joined hands and then looked up with her patented smirk and raised eyebrow. Chloe avoided her eyes by waving at the Bella’s huddled over at the shallow end of the pool.

Beca tried to pull her hand away while she thought the redhead was distracted but Chloe held fast. Beca laughs and Chloe squeezes her hand again. “So, what was it about No Diggity?”

“I don’t know, I was just…” Beca shrugs, “I was singing alone it was terrifying and I wanted to run as far as I possibly could. But when you guys all came in?” Beca looks down at their joined hands to escape from Chloe’s focused attention, “Turning around and seeing everyone have my back like that? I got what you kept saying about a sisterhood. For the first time I really felt like part of a team.”

“Beca…”

Chloe’s voice was so soft and Beca felt so vulnerable that she couldn’t help her instincts to diffuse the emotion from their conversation. She tugged her hand free and crossed her arms before shuffling back a few steps and shooting a smirk at Chloe, “And since we desperately needed to come together as a team, this was the first place I thought of. If it worked for someone as closed off as me, then it would definitely work for this team.”

Chloe gave a small smile and slipped her hands into the pockets of her jacket. She blinked away the emotion in her eyes and stepped in to nudge Beca with her elbow. “I don’t know Becs. I think you were just pretty open with your feelings.”

“It’s easy with you. You have a thing.” Beca shrugged.

“A thing?”

“Yeah. A thing.”

“Is it a good thing?”

“It’s a great thing.”

Chloe ducks her head to hide her bright smile. “You have a pretty great thing yourself.”

Beca took a moment of silence to just look at her before dropping her arms and taking a small step forward. “Chloe… I’m really sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Beca wasn’t about to let Chloe just wave away the things she had done. She had taken advantage of their friendship to hurt her because she was angry.

“No, Chloe – “ After all the things Chloe had dealt with this year, Beca couldn’t let Chloe forgive her this easily.

“Beca.” Chloe cut in before reaching out and placing her hand gently on Beca’s shoulder. “It’s fine, really. I forgive you.” Using the hand that was already on her shoulder, Chloe pulls her into a hug. Beca falls into her willingly, clinging tightly to the redhead and whispering apologies into her shoulder.

They only pull apart when Amy runs by shouting about ‘1 in 10’ being wrong.

Chloe laughs and brushes her hair behind her ear as she grins at Beca. “You have to go rally the troops, Captain. They’re going to need you to keep them together.”

Beca looked over at the girls and found them huddled around Amy as she seemed to be trying to make Lily speak again. With panicked fear in her eyes, Beca turned back to Chloe, “As your captain, I order you to help me.”

“Can’t. I have to keep someone else together.” Beca follows Chloe’s eyes over the figure of Aubrey standing alone on the edge of the pool and winces. She’d rather deal with the Bella’s.

“Okay but I hope you know I will remember this insubordination.”

Chloe winks and strides away.

-

“Bree.” Chloe walks up slowly until she’s shoulder to shoulder with the blonde.

“Hey, Chloe.”

Aubrey barely even blinked at Chloe’s greeting and her voice was hollow. Both things Chloe never really associated with her best friend, “Are you okay?”

“I failed.” Aubrey shrugged half-heartedly. “I failed and that’s not even the worse part.”

“What do you mean?” Chloe turned to face her dejected best friend.

“I was terrible Chloe.”

“Bree.”

Aubrey gave a humourless chuckle, “All year, I’ve just been terrible to everyone. I’ve been terrible to you.”

“You were under a lot of pressure, Bree.” She twisted her lips and looked away.

“And you weren’t?” For the first time in their conversation, Aubrey turned to look at Chloe. Chloe could see the tears that had brimmed up in Aubrey’s eyes.

She sighed and looked at Aubrey, who had to look away. “You were a jerk Bree. But you’re my _best friend._ ” She grabbed her hand and tugged so a teary Aubrey had no choice but to face her.

Aubrey gave a watery smile that Chloe returned. “You’re my best friend too. I haven’t been acting like it though.”

Chloe opened her mouth to disagree, but Aubrey shook her head and grabbed Chloe’s other hand tightly, “Chlo, you couldn’t even tell me you were getting surgery! Hell, you didn’t even tell me that you had nodes!”

Chloe looked down at her feet and shrugged one shoulder, “I just thought if I never brought it up then I wouldn’t have to face it was happening.”

They settled into an odd silence while the sounds of screaming and laughter came from the huddle of Bella’s in the pool. Aubrey’s lips quirked up and she took that moment to sit on the edge of the pool.

“You were right, you know?” Chloe tilted her head. Aubrey looked up at her and nodded her head towards the huddle. “Initiation night, you were right. We did it.”

“I think they may have helped.” Chloe said as she joined Aubrey on the edge of the pool. They shared a look before they both started to chuckle.

“I couldn’t have made it through this year without you.” Aubrey leaned a little against Chloe and the redhead shuffled in closer with a smile. “The Bella’s _definitely_ would not have. You were able to handle everything thrown at you and still keep us together.”

Chloe huffed a laugh as she locked her eyes onto a certain DJ in the Bella huddle. A memory came to her and she grinned a little, “Shoot me down but I won’t fall.”

Aubrey looked between Beca and Chloe before settling back on Chloe with a sad smile. “Oh, Chlo. I think you already have.”

Chloe didn’t hear the words, but Aubrey had already sat up and started to stand. Confused, Chloe got up as well and followed.

“Aubrey! Where are you going?”

“Do you know how close Nationals is?” Aubrey threw the question over her shoulder as she reached the shallow end and jumped down into the pool itself. “Because I bet Beca doesn’t and she looks a little out of her depth down there.”

Chloe looks into the pool where Beca is getting overrun by the excitable Bella’s throwing down setlist ideas. Actually, Amy might just be trying to throw down. Either way, the new captain definitely needs help.

Chloe jumped down into the pool and joined Aubrey in watching their team muck about. “Okay, yeah. You might have a point. We should definitely get down there.”

-

They sat down and worked but what they wanted their new setlist to sound like and throughout the entire process Beca had a mix already running through her head.

Chloe nudged and cast her a sly look before quieting the other girls and asking what Beca was thinking. Beca tried to play it off, not wanting to trample all over the aca-democracy that they had just established.

She had sworn that she would learn from Aubrey’s failure (Chloe said “Example” but Chloe could be wrong) and that she would hear everyone out in their new team set-up.

Chloe wouldn’t let it go though and soon all the Bella’s were heckling her for her ideas and making fun of her by throwing out worse and worse songs.

Beca threw in the towel when Chloe busted out Thong Song and Amy, CR and Stacie jumped in fast enough that Beca wasn’t convinced that they hadn’t rehearsed that already.

She quickly threw a rough demo together for the Bella’s and when Aubrey started tapping along, she knew that she was onto a good thing. Beca was honestly shocked that she could even see Aubrey though because Chloe’s smile was giving the sun a run for its money in both warmth and brightness.

(Beca would probably pick Chloe over the sun. But picking Chloe is kind of her thing.)

Chloe worked pretty closely with Beca over the next week as they finished the arrangement and got an idea on the choreography. Beca had a general idea of who she wanted to sing what, but Chloe knew enough about Beca and the other girls that Beca only had to big picture the idea and Chloe would nail out the details.

Inspiration struck Beca over a conversation with Chloe. They were discussing the mix and Beca was getting frustrated because no matter how great everyone else said it was, she knew that there was something that was missing.

Something that would take it from being great and move it into being epic. She just didn’t know what it was. The answer came to her in the form of Chloe.

They were in Beca’s dorm room. She was at her desk working on the mix and Chloe was propped up on her bed flicking through a textbook.

“There’s something just not quite right about it.” Beca roughly scrubbed at her face as she spun away from the laptop.

Chloe only briefly glanced up with an exaggerated pout before turning back to her book. “Well, what are you trying to say with it?”

“Give us that big trophy?”

“No, Becs.” She rolled her eyes before closing the book and sitting up and locking eyes with Beca. “Music carries meaning, it carries emotions. If you want to win you just might have to get in touch with yours.”

Beca rolls her eyes and slouches back in her chair, “The horror.”

“Don’t think of it like a mix, think about it like a performance.” Chloe nods her head at the mix open on the laptop, “What do you want this performance to say? What do you want it to say about you?”

Beca sighed and propped her elbows on her knees as she leaned forward. “I… I want it to say that I’m- that _we’re_ better as a team. I want it to say how much this; acapella, Jesse, the Bella’s, _you_.” Beca gestured at the listening redhead before spinning back to her mixing desk. “I want this performance to say how much it has all meant to me.”

Chloe smiled and pushed herself off the bed. She came to stand behind Beca’s chair and draped herself over the back, “So let it.”

“Gee. No pressure.” Beca snorted.

Chloe spun the chair and forced Beca to make eye contact. Feeling weren’t Beca’s strong suit and neither was gracefully accepting compliments, “You’re amazing Becs. I know it and the Bella’s know it. It’s time everyone else knows it too.”

Beca’s eyes watered and she sniffled as she swiped a hand over her face quickly. Chloe was always sincere when she complimented Beca, but it always made her a little emotional, “That was incredibly corny.”

Chloe stood tall and beamed. Beca groaned and waved a hand at the ecstatic redhead, “Stop… doing that with you face. Let’s go, we’re probably late.”

-

A clear bonus to now having a lot of friends who are also girls, is that Beca now has people to go to for advice. A fact that comes in very helpful when Beca is trying to plan out how to apologise to Jesse. Because apparently even though she went out of her way to go and deliver a sincere “I’m sorry I was a dick” it was not enough.

She realised that he was right when she told the girls that and the only person who agreed with her was Amy. Amy actually thought she did too much and volunteered to teach her “how to really date”.

She declined and immediately recruited Cynthia Rose into helping her first access her emotions and then Stacie helping her somewhat express her emotions. Even with all their help, Beca was still struggling.

It was actually Aubrey who gave her the idea. Beca was stunned.

It came after one of their planning sessions. Beca was moaning about still not having a way to apologise to Jesse despite Stacie and Cynthia Rose’s help.

Clearly having had enough, Aubrey turned to her with frustration lacing both her voice and her face, “Beca. It is not that hard.”

Beca was taken aback. Stacie nudged Aubrey who rolled her eyes but acquiesced. She turned back with a clearly fake smile and hints of strain on her face to hold back her frustration. “Beca. He likes movies, right?”

Beca eyed her wearily as she nodded slowly. Behind the blonde, she saw her friends all slowly creeping out the door and leaving her alone with Aubrey. She was going to abuse her power as Captain and make them all run laps until they puked.

Aubrey sighed heavily as she sat back in her seat. “Okay, so what do apologies all entail in movies?” At Beca’s blank and slightly frightened stare, Aubrey smile grew even thinner and more forced, “Gestures, Beca! Big, meaningful gestures that are supposed to show how much you care for a person.”

Beca felt an idea hit her out of the blue. She looked at a waiting Aubrey, “Dude. I’ve actually got the beginnings of an idea.”

Aubrey threw her hands up and began to pack up her stuff. “Really? ‘The beginnings of an idea’? Do I have to spell this out for you?”

“Um, maybe?” Realising that she had to present confidence (that’s how you deal with predators, right?) Beca straightened her back and squared her shoulders as she tried with a stronger voice, “Look, this is hard for me okay? I’m not really good at this sort of thing.”

Aubrey rolled her eyes, “Yes! Clearly.” She sighed and hoisted her bag onto her shoulder, “Look, you need a big gesture, we just so happen to be going to a National competition.”

Beca felt increasingly guilty as she failed to get the blonde’s point. Aubrey looked to the ceiling and exhaled slowly as she tried to reign in her negative emotions.

(Beca was pretty sure she heard her mutter something about Chloe owing her but Beca couldn’t be sure.)

“If only Jesse was also going to be at the Nationals! If he were, then you could perform something for him that is special for the two of you as a couple!” Aubrey had put on a purposefully fake smile this time. Beca grimaced at the heavy sarcasm and winced a little at the rage that was hiding in the former captain’s smile.

Her grimace disappeared as the words sunk in though. She shot up out of her seat and gestured wildly at Aubrey. “Dude! I could throw something into the mashup!”

She missed Aubrey’s sarcastic reaction because she was already looking around for her laptop as beats and lyrics started layering themselves in her mind. She started up a small humming when she found her laptop and waved absently as Aubrey left.

She still couldn’t believe that, in a situation so heavily tangled with emotions, it was _Aubrey_ who had actually been the most single-handedly helpful person in the entire team. She would never admit to it, but right then Beca understood how Aubrey could be a great best friend.

But still. She would never tell anyone that.

-

They’re backstage and Beca had never been more nervous.

She had never seen the girls more nervous either. She was pretty sure that Amy had started a bet on whether or not Aubrey was going to vomit, as captain she was probably supposed to stop that sort of thing, but she was having enough trouble trying not to vomit herself.

(She had always thought pukegate was kind of funny but now that she’s here? She totally gets it).

Shit.

She was nervous. So nervous.

Not only did she have to be nervous about the fact that the Bella’s were about to compete on a national stage, she was also the one now leading them and therefore responsible for their victory or defeat. And on top of those other valid reasons for worry, Beca had to be nervous about her relationship with Jesse as well. He hadn’t spoken to her since she went to see him, she was really hoping that their set would make sense to him. At least enough sense that he would hear her out if she had to apologise again.

That all paled in comparison to her own nerves about the performance itself; what if everyone hated it?

Oh, god.

What if Aubrey _did_ throw up again?

Should they have given Fat Amy a button down to rip open in case the audience looked bored? Maybe.

Every time Beca started internally freaking out, she just closed her eyes and remembered Chloe’s face when she told her she was amazing.

It’s the most reassuring memory that Beca has.

Well, that and Aubrey listening to the final version of the mix. She was actually smiling when she told Beca it was outstanding!

(She actually said: “we’re going to win” but Beca still isn’t convinced that she didn’t dream that. Lily is looking into finding footage of the words.)

She was shaken from her thoughts as a guy in a red hoodie ran by. That got her back to being nervous about Jesse.

Beca may hate movies but she still knows how they end.

Movies are predictable and her and Jesse are as predictable as they come. She knew that as soon as she ran into him properly at the radio station, it’s why she fought so hard against knowing him. He grew on her though and before long, she found herself genuinely caring about Jesse.

And right when she figured that out, she lashed out and pushed him away. That was just their middle though, and Beca reassured herself that they were about to get their big, cliché moment and their big, cliché ending.

Just like the movies that Jesse loved so much.

She smiled at her thoughts and felt someone come to stand next to her.

Of course, it was Chloe.

“Hey, what are you smiling about?”

Beca turned and took a shaky breath, “I’m just thinking. This is going to be our big ending, y’know?”

Chloe threw an arm around Beca’s shoulders and began guiding her back to their spots, “Don’t you worry Becs. This is only the beginning.”

-

When they finish singing, Chloe knows that they’ve won. There’s not a chance that they haven’t just blown every other team out of the water. All the Bella’s know it and so they start celebrating on stage. There’s a big group hug and obviously Chloe is all about group hugs so she’s all over it.

As she’s screaming with an arm around Jessica and Ashley, she sees Beca dash of the stage and into the stands, right into Jesse’s waiting arms.

She’s kissing Jesse.

Chloe feels the abrupt crash from the high of winning to the low of watching Beca smile into a kiss with Jesse. She releases the girls and stumbles back from the very front of the stage.

She doesn’t really get why she feels so crushed until it hits her like a train. She doesn’t just love Beca like she loves any of the other Bella’s, she doesn’t even love Beca like she loves Aubrey.

She’s _in_ love with Beca.

“Oh.” Chloe’s eyes widen, and her mouth falls open in shock at her revelation.

The more she thinks about it though the more she realises that, subconsciously, she knew this long ago. She just ignored or labelled Beca under the same category as Aubrey. She didn’t realise that she had really put Beca into her own category, one that was above basically everyone else.

Struck by her new look on her life, Chloe can’t stop staring at the couple in the crowd. It’s like she’s torturing herself because she wants nothing more than to look away but she’s frozen, devastated while all of her friends scream with joy around them.

She takes a few steps towards them before a strong hand clamps down on her shoulder and spins her away from the scene. Even before she sees their face, she knows who it is, and Chloe buries her face in Aubrey’s hair as she tries to push back the tears.

“Oh, Chloe.” Aubrey’s voice and the hints of pity it held only made Chloe cling even tighter to her best friend.

She lets out a strangled laugh as her current situation reminds her of Regionals when Aubrey’s hand on her shoulder had stopped her from going after Beca for a different reason. She had been upset about that then as well, if only she had known.

She stops laughing when she remembers that it had been Jesse who went after Beca that night instead. Try as she might, even with the devastation choking her and tears threatening to fall, Chloe still couldn’t find it within herself to be mad at Jesse.

How could she be mad at him for falling in love with Beca when she did the exact same thing?

Aubrey hustled her off the stage and into an empty equipment closet just as the tears began to fall. Through it all, she only held Chloe tightly and didn’t once complain about her own victory buzz being killed. It was sometimes tough being Aubrey’s best friend but at times like these, Chloe appreciated that she had someone to lean on.

“Bree?”

“Yeah, Chlo? Chloe winces as the nickname reminds her of all the times it had been Beca calling her that.

“I think she ruined me.” Her voice was muffled by Aubrey’s shoulder but she knew that she had been heard when Aubrey tensed up at her own words being thrown back at her. Chloe knew it was a little cruel to throw words from the start of the year at her friend but she could think of no other way to describe how she felt at that moment.

The celebration party that night is wild. Not only are the Bella’s celebrating their redemption and victory, but the Treble’s had joined them to drink away their defeat. And, of course, this made perfect sense to both teams now that their captains were dating.

Chloe could not be more grateful for Aubrey sticking by her side the entire night. Her newly discovered feelings for Beca and her subsequent devastation needed to be drowned out, and quickly. She wasn’t sure what Stacie knew but she had given her a sadly knowing smile as she put a row of shots down in front of Chloe.

“Trust me, Red.” Chloe squinted at the beauty as they both picked up a shot. She only got a wink and a significantly peppier statement as Amy sidled up to the bar, “Nothing better than these on a night like tonight.”

That was how she ended up at the bar going shot for shot with Amy, Stacie and Aubrey. Aubrey had joined her out of solidarity and had stayed with her even as Amy and Stacie peeled off to go bother the couple of the hour.

Left at the bar, they slammed back shot after shot until they were both at risk of vomiting. Seeing Beca weaving her way through the crowd, Jesse in tow, Chloe grabbed Aubrey and they faded into the nearest gaggle of Bella’s.

It wasn’t super hard for Chloe to avoid Beca all night. Beca was busy with her doting new boyfriend and it was easy enough for Chloe to subtly position drunken Bella’s directly into Beca’s path. Chloe was almost certain that some of the Bella’s knew about her situation as well.

Whenever Beca got too close, Stacie or Cynthia Rose would appear and distract her so Chloe could slip away. Between the joyous Bella’s and a loyal Aubrey, Chloe survives the night without having to talk to Beca and force herself to be happy for her and Jesse.

She should have known Aubrey would never be able to leave this alone though. She at least made it until the two of them are alone walking through their hotel.

“You know that you’re going to have to deal with this, right?”

“Do we really have to do this now Bree?” Chloe was leaning her head back against the elevator wall and didn’t even open her eyes to respond. “We’re both pretty drunk.” She opened her eyes slowly to shoot Aubrey a hopeful look, “Maybe we can do this tomorrow?”

“When we’re both hungover? Sure, Chlo. Sounds great.” Aubrey scoffed.

Chloe let out a deep sigh as she closed her eyes again and imagined that the only reason she felt so bad was the alcohol.

Aubrey had never run from anything though and she wasn’t about to let her do it either, “Chloe. This isn’t going to go away.”

“How do you know that?” The redhead opened her eyes and pushed off the wall to spit the words angrily.

Aubrey only blinked at her, “Because it hasn’t gone away since you met her.”

Chloe took a step back as the truth of the words hit her in the chest. The elevator sounded and she stalked out of the doors as soon as they were wide enough.

“It hasn’t gone away Chloe. You’re going to have to face this.” Aubrey followed, still telling Chloe everything she didn’t want to hear. She heard Aubrey take a deep breath and braced herself for the words she definitely wouldn’t want to hear, “Hell, you’re going to have to face Beca.”

Chloe put on a brave face and scoffed, “I know.” She swiped her key card and flung open their door. Aubrey once more followed quietly but the look on her face said more than enough.

Chloe sighed and stopped pretending to be unaffected, “I know I have to face it and face her and I will.” She looked at the blonde with watery eyes and shrugged, “Tomorrow I am going to be over the moon for Beca. And Jesse. And the two of them as a couple. I couldn’t… I couldn’t be happier for them. Really.”

“Oh, yeah.” Aubrey nods sarcastically and watches with hawk eyes as Chloe swipes tears from her eyes, “You can tell that you really meant all of that.”

“Bree, I can’t do it tonight. I just- I just can’t. Not right now.” Chloe’s voice breaks as her sadness clogs her throat. She falls onto Aubrey’s bed and just stares at the blank ceiling feeling lost.

Aubrey moves in closer and perches next to Chloe, “And you somehow think that you’ll be better and able to do that tomorrow? Chloe, come on.”

“She’s one of my best friends, Bree.” Tears stream down her face as she turns to her best friend with a thin, watery smile, “I just need tonight. Can you just give me tonight?”

Aubrey is nodding before she even finishes, “Of course, Chloe.”

She gets up to flick the lights off and when she comes back Chloe is tucked under her cover. Aubrey doesn’t even blink, just climbs in next to her and throws an arm over the redhead and pulls her into a tight hug.

They lie together in silence for a little while before Aubrey’s tentative voice sounds. “Chlo, no matter what we feel like we lost this year… We’ve gained a whole lot more.”

Chloe cries a little harder and reaches for Aubrey’s hand and falls into an uneasy sleep holding tight onto her best friend.

-

It’s only after they return to Barden and the fanfare around them being champions calms down, that Beca realises that she’s going to be in charge now. Just her and no one else. That she won’t have Aubrey around to scare the Bella’s into line and that she won’t have Chloe around anymore.

Chloe had been a little off since Nationals but Beca just chalked that up to nerves about her impending graduation. Between her and Aubrey planning on leaving for good, the other Bella’s stressed about finals and Beca panicking about her own finals, she was hitting a high stress level.

Everything just feels like a lot all at once. Jesse is basically already planning their wedding which is freaking Beca out by how serious he seems already. The Bella’s are already looking to her as captain and Aubrey is trying to give her a crash course on the paperwork required in her new role. Beca just isn’t ready for any of this responsibility or the expectations she now has on her.

In an effort to hold off the mental breakdown she can feel creeping up, Beca decides to take a few days. She turns her phone off and just wanders around less populated areas of campus.

No one to constantly pepper her with questions or plans for a dual break that Beca didn’t remember agreeing to. Just her and her laptop, the way she started the year.

Beca is holed up in one of the abandoned bleacher seats by the pool when she’s found. Beca looks up from her latest mix to find concerned blue eyes staring up at her. Beca curses internally and slowly takes her headphones off with a sigh as Chloe makes her way next to her.

“What are you doing, Beca?” She was surprised when Chloe’s voice was so soft and obviously concerned. She was expecting the redhead to be angry about how she just ditched everyone and took off.

Beca looked down and shuffled her feet nervously, “It’s just a lot. I just- I’m just not…”

Chloe ducked her head to catch Beca’s eyes, “You’re not what?”

“I don’t know. Ready?” Beca shrugged.

“Not ready for what?” Beca went back to staring at her feet, leaving Chloe to continue to try and guess what was wrong.

She looked at the things that Beca had brought with her; her laptop and drives, a jacket, some food, and a binder that Chloe absolutely recognised. It was a very large binder that Aubrey had put together for Beca, in it was everything that she would need to effectively and efficiently run the Bella’s.

It included a list of detailed Bella’s traditions, various forms for the ICCA competitions that Aubrey had perfectly filled out as examples, and then copies of their agreements with the university that allowed them to continue.

Chloe could see how it would stress Beca out.

She caught the brunette’s attention and nodded at the binder, “You think you’re not ready for the Bella’s?”

“I’m sure as hell not ready to be captain.” Beca snorted.

“You’re a great captain Beca! You led us to our first ICCA title, that’s usually the sign of a good captain.”

Beca scoffed and threw in an eyeroll for good measure, “Please, you and Aubrey had basically already done everything for us by that point. And even if you hadn’t, you were right there to help, or talk me through this whole mess.”

Chloe leaned back as the real problem hit her. “You’re scared to do this alone.”

“What, no!” Beca spat. Chloe raised an eyebrow and Beca crumpled in on herself, “That could be it. Maybe.”

Chloe looks down as her phone chimes its alarm. She looks back at Beca before makings of an idea started forming.

She stood and drew Beca’s attention. “You shouldn’t be scared about going this alone Beca. Besides, you’re not alone. You have an entire team at your disposal and I’ll let you in on a secret,” She leaned in and grabbed Beca’s phone, turning it on before handing it back as the notifications began, “When they come together as a team, those girls are unstoppable. I hear that they’re national champions.”

Beca was left speechless as Chloe flounced off, leaving Beca with a quick wink and a nod towards her buzzing phone.

-

Chloe looks down at the Russian Literature quiz in front of her. This is it for her, she finishes this exam and she’s done. Her Barden experience will be over and she can move onto the next chapter of her life.

It’s not like the Bella’s are being left in bad shape. Beca will eventually get the hang of leading from the front and will be able to handle the pressures that come with it.

Chloe gnaws at her lip as she thinks it all over. She glances up at the clock and discovers that she’s been stuck at this crossroads for nearly the entire allotted time. If she hurries, she can still finish a passing grade exam. Chloe goes to begin writing when something catches her eye.

It’s her Bella’s scarf.

She stares at it for a few minutes and it feels like the decision is made for her.

-

“Hey, Becs.”

Beca jolted from her spot on her bed as her door opens to reveal a familiar redhead leaning in her doorway. (She’s got to get Chloe to teach her this trick of constantly unlocking doors.)

Beca smiled for a second at the welcome surprise but frowned when she remembered how Chloe had last left her. It took her nearly all afternoon to go through her messages and let everyone know that she wasn’t dead or in a ditch, or dead in a ditch.

“I hope you know how long it took me to get through all of those messages.” Beca grumbled.

Chloe smiled and made her way to the spot Beca had patted for her. She immediately reached for the headphones to listen to Beca’s latest mix as is their routine but Beca stopped her.

Her eyes were flickering over her face and for a second, Chloe’s heart started to pound as she considered what might happen.

“Chloe,” She said softly, “Is everything okay?”

Chloe laughed and shook her head at her stupid hopes. She shifted her eyes to Beca’s concerned face and patted her knee gently, “Everything’s fine. I just hope you’re okay with me staying on the team a little longer.”

Beca’s brow furrowed and Chloe cursed her traitorous heart as it skipped a beat at the cute DJ. “What do you mean?”

“I failed Russian Lit. I’m hoping you’ll let me stay with the Bella’s.” Beca’s mouth dropped open and Chloe shot her a small grin, “I promise that I can do all of the admin stuff in my sleep. So, if you want, all you’ll have to do is the arrangements and hands on captain stuff.”

“Chloe… What do y- I just don’t… What?” Beca stumbled over her words before just giving up in a fluster.

“The Bella’s have me for another year, Becs.”

The DJ only looked more lost. “Shouldn’t you be captain then?”

Chloe laughs, “Not a chance! You be captain and I’ll handle the paperwork.”

“Co-captain then.”

“The Bella’s don’t have co-captains Beca. You really need to read that binder.” She nodded towards the overflowing binder that was closed on Beca’s desk.

“Not if I have you for another year, I don’t.” She scoffed before biting her lip, “I do have you for another year, right?” She seemed to panic when she realised what she had said and rushed to correct herself, “I mean, we! _We_ have you for another year.”

“Don’t worry Becs. You have me for another year.” Chloe’s smile was blinding.

“Now show me what you’re working on.” She reached for the headphones again and this time, Beca let her.


	2. Chapter 2

Beca held onto the pitch pipe until the Bella’s first practice. She made it through the entire practice by the skin of her teeth and as soon as they were out of the sight of the Bella’s she whirled to Chloe.

“You have to take it. Take it!” She startled Chloe as she desperately shoved the pitch pipe at the redhead.

“What? No!” Chloe pushed away from Beca’s insistence with a laugh, “We’ve already talked about this. You’re the captain Beca.”

“And that was great until Amy decided that what we really need is tear away pants! Pants, may I add, that Stacie seemed to already have!” Eyes wide with fear and stress, Beca tried again to shove the pipe into a laughing Chloe’s grip.

“Yeah but at least then you know that they’re sharing ideas. Isn’t that what you wanted? A team that comes up with ideas together?” Beca glared at Chloe’s innocent face as her own words were sent back at her. Damn that redhead and her listening skills.

“I meant good ideas, not ‘what if we tear off our pants ideas’. There’s just the teeniest bit of difference.”

Chloe just laughed harder. Beca would never admit that her glare may have turned into more of a pout.

“Chloe, I’m serious.” She looked around warily and lowered her voice, (you never know where Lily hides) “These girls are crazy! And I’m outnumbered!”

Chloe smiled and wrapped her arms around her in a very one-sided hug. Beca’s protests were all met with tighter squeezes. Beca wondered for a minute if she should bring back the workout routine stuff Aubrey had tried to make stick because damn, Chloe’s arms were like marble.

Soft, muscular and gentle marble.

Not that Beca was thinking about how nice Chloe’s hugs were. Not at all.

Seeing no escape in her near future, Beca sighed and relaxed into Chloe’s arms. “I just don’t want to screw this up. I know how much the Bella’s mean to everyone and I don’t want to be the one to ruin that.” Admitting defeat, she brought her arms up to return the hug, “I mean, you even held off graduating Chlo!”

“Oh Beca.” Chloe pushed Beca back a little and gently cupped her face. Her sincerity made it difficult for Beca to meet her eyes but Chloe wouldn’t let her look away, “Becs, you aren’t going to ruin anything. I told Aubrey this last year and now I’m telling you, you make us better. You saved the Bella’s Beca, that’s the opposite of ruining them.”

“You told Aubrey that?” She nodded and Beca’s shaky smile morphed into a grin, “Bet she hated that.”

“She came around. And so will you.” She shrugged and threw an arm over the brunette’s smaller shoulders, “Besides, I know for a fact that you’ll be fine.”

“Oh yeah? What leads you to that conclusion?”

“Because, you have me.”

Chloe could see how much her trust means to Beca.

Even as she snorts and tries to shake it off, Beca’s face sports a small sincere smile and she stands a little taller. Being trusted as the leader of the Bella’s, something that means so much to her, brings out the best in Beca.

There’s a confidence and assuredness that settles around Beca when she’s leading the Bella’s and Chloe can’t stop her smile whenever she sees it. She still isn’t 100% sure that she made the right decision when she stayed at Barden but seeing Beca in her element like that always seems worth it.

A phone chime breaks their silence and Beca opens her phone and types quickly as she rolls her eyes with a smile. “Jesse wants me to watch E.T. with him. Another of his efforts to give me a ‘movication’.”

Chloe forces a smile on her face as Beca looks up for sympathy. “E.T. huh? Well, don’t forget to phone home.”

The brunette scoffed. “Yeah, sure, I’ll call you later.”

Chloe could feel her brain shut down at the words. She could do nothing but gape as Beca made her goodbyes and left Chloe standing in a daze.

-

Beca is shocked that she hasn’t been able to push Jesse away for good. As it is, they’re still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship according to the Bella’s.

They all tease her when she’ll have them finish practice early or they’ll leave the auditorium and Jesse will be waiting outside to pick Beca up.

She still finds it ridiculous that the Bella’s had all decided (without her, even though she’s the damn captain!) that their practices would remain closed to Trebles.

She had only found this out about this new rule when Jesse had come inside the auditorium to wait for her.

A shout of “Intruder!” had gone up and Amy had charged at him. Beca just watched the situation unfold in horror until Lily appeared behind Jesse from seemingly nowhere.

By the time Beca had run over to try to stop them, Amy already had Jesse in some sort of modified headlock that she claimed was used to take down crocodiles. Straining, Jesse confirmed its’ effectiveness in case anyone wanted to dispute it.

By the time he was released, Jesse had made the wise decision to wait for Beca outside from then on. He also kept a wide distance from Amy and Lily for a few weeks.

Beca was horrified but the Bella’s were unrepentant and Beca could swear that Chloe even chuckled at Amy and Lily frogmarching a scared and confused Jesse out of the building.

Last year, incidents like this would have been enough for Beca to run away from Jesse and the Bella’s and Barden itself. But this is the new and improved Captain Beca, who doesn’t run away when her team wrestles her boyfriend or when the Bella’s change her ringtone to Jesse’s Girl, even though that song gets stuck in her head for days. She doesn’t even like that song.

She almost considers running when the Bella’s decide to interrogate Jesse on his romantic history at an aca party. She doesn’t know how they did it, but the Bella’s have wrangled a folding table and two chairs set up in a secluded corner.  She gets distracted for ten minutes and when she comes back, Stacie is sitting at one end of the table using a flashlight as an old-school interrogation light.

Beca turned to Cynthia Rose who was watching on with a wide grin, “Who left Jesse at Stacie’s mercy?”

“Are you kidding? Wait until Amy gets in there, they have a whole good cop, bad cop thing ready. I saw them rehearse it, it’s spectacular.”

“Rehearse it?” Beca couldn’t decide if she was more confused or mortified that her team had apparently planned this integration out fully, “No! As Captain I veto this!”

“Sorry Cap,” Beca felt any hope at stopping this trainwreck slip away as Amy emerged from behind her, “But this was the best idea we had.”

Beca’s brow furrowed and she opened her mouth to argue but felt herself be pulled away from the scene. She looked at Chloe who was chuckling softly as she nudged Beca away from the interrogation.

“You’re just going to let them do this?”

Chloe shot Beca a smirk that did nothing to alleviate the tension in her chest. Tension that was only concern for Jesse. Not anything to do with the way that the stupid party lights bounced off Chloe’s hair and cast a halo around her. “Amy wasn’t kidding when she said it was the best plan they had. It was either this or they call Aubrey.”

That snapped Beca right out of her daze. “Dude.”

“Don’t worry so much.” Beca frowned as Chloe guided them through the mass of people inside the house. Chloe somehow avoided bumping into every person but Beca was bouncing around like a pinball which made interrupting Chloe difficult. Probably the redhead’s plan all along she thought sullenly. “I talked them out of the Aubrey plan and I made Stacie promise to play nice. Cynthia Rose is there to make sure Amy plays nice too.”

It wasn’t until they had made it through the house to the front yard that Beca could talk. “This would never have happened to Aubrey.”

“Probably not but then again, Aubrey would never have dated a Treble.” Chloe made a considering face and tilted her head for a moment, “She would have probably preferred having her vocal chords ripped out by wolves.”

Chloe jumped up to sit on a garden wall and Beca rolled her eyes as she moved to follow her. She really should try harder to not constantly be a step behind Chloe but by now, she’s come to accept that she’ll generally always cave to the redhead.

There is one thing she won’t cave on though and Beca made sure Chloe was listening before she began clambering up next to her, “I want you to know that, under my leadership, we won’t have any more cult nights.”

“It’s not a cult.” At the sceptical look shot her way, Chloe shrugged, “Maybe just a small one.”

“Oh, well that’s relieving. I just abandoned my boyfriend to the whims of a cult.” Her sarcasm was clearly not taken seriously as Chloe leaned back and looked up at the stars.

“Did you want to go back for him?” She frowned as something about Chloe’s voice seemed off. She waited for Chloe to maybe keep talking but the redhead just kept her face tilted up and away from Beca.

“Nah. Jesse’s a big boy, he can handle himself.” She should probably feel worse about leaving him with the Bella’s but Beca was focused on Chloe. “Unless you want to go back? You probably want to go back, right?”

Beca shifted to jump off the wall but looking down the wall seemed much higher now than it did when she was standing. She was prepping herself to look ridiculous as she slid down when Chloe’s hand on her arm stopped her.

“Becs, relax. I’ve been to a million of these things and trust me, you are the most interesting thing here.” It was right then that a chorus of delighted shouts rang out from the backyard. Beca resolutely did not look. Whatever it was probably involved at least one Bella and she didn’t want to know any part of it.

Chloe, showing an amount of courage that Beca envied, turned to the sound as if she could see what was going on. “Except for whatever the girls are no doubt getting up to.”

“We should not have left them unsupervised.” Despite her words, Beca settled back comfortably. Chloe chuckled and agreed as a few more shouts went up. They both watched as a few of the partygoers ran inside the house, clearly heading for the place where all the excitement seemed to be happening. Beca shook her head and hoped that the Bella’s would end the night without an arrest.

They sat quietly amongst all the noise of a typical college party with the added thrill of random sing offs between aca people. Chloe tilted her head back up and watched the sky again, this time Beca joined her. She watched a plane blink its way through the sky and didn’t take her eyes off it as she spoke. “You know… you are too.”

“Hmm?” Chloe turned to face her but Beca remained staring straight up at the plane.

She could feel the redhead’s inquisitive eyes on her and could feel the blood rising in her cheeks. Even still, Beca cleared her throat and forced the words out quickly. “You’re the most interesting thing here too.”

When she finally glanced away from the plane Beca discovered that Chloe’s small smile was still somehow brighter than any of the stars.

-

Auditions were more of a blur than they were when it was her up there. Beca was a little disappointed that they weren’t able to get any new recruits, but that disappointment faded when Amy reminded her of a silver lining.

“How are we going to get the super-secret goblet stuff now?”

They were all huddled around the backstage area long after the aca hopefuls had left. There was some furniture from the drama classes that they had taken control of to form a loose circle. Beca had claimed a ridiculously cushy armchair, Amy had somehow gotten a chaise lounge to herself and the rest of the Bella’s were sprawled over two couches.

“You know that you could buy that literally anywhere, right?” Cynthia Rose cocked an eyebrow as Amy reclined and threw her arm over her head dramatically.

“The Blood of the Sisters? Nah, you can only get that from a sacred place. Right, Ginger?” Amy regally waved an arm at Chloe on the other couch.

Beca rolled her eyes and interjected before Amy could get Chloe carried away with it. “Amy, she got it from Walmart.”

“Did not.” Chloe made a face of offense but Beca could still see her trying not to smile, “Amy, you’re right. It is part of a sacred Bella tradition and therefore, is also sacred.” Chloe turned her eyes back on Beca and she realise who it was she was teasing. Beca immediately started to plead for mercy with her eyes and little shakes of her head but Chloe just smiled. “Beca’s just mad because there’s no one new to fawn over her talent.”

Beca could almost feel the attitude switch from the Bella’s. They were all relaxed and content to watch how Amy was going to play out but now there were grins creeping across faces, eyes were cutting around and forming silent plans. Beca was doomed and she knew it.

“Aw, don’t worry Dj B. We’ve got you covered.” Cynthia Rose (someone she had thought was _responsible_ and _calming_ ) grinned and nodded her head at Stacie.

Beca’s eyes followed that nod as the leggy brunette smirked and unfolded herself from her spot sprawled across the laps of Chloe, Jessica and Ashley. She was kind of hoping that would be it because honestly, Stacie was threat enough. Unfortunately for Beca, Stacie began strutting towards her, eyes dark and hair wild from where Chloe had been absently playing with it.

“No, what are you doing?” It was only as Beca was shrinking back into her chair that she noticed Cynthia Rose and Amy also advancing towards her. “Get away-“

She was cut off by the three of them diving on her and squealing with laughter as the Bella’s all shouted at her.

“Tell us about mixing Beca!”

“I want to match our down beats!”

“I want to feel your bass line!”

“Oooh yeah! Give it to me DJ B!”

Beca was squirming and trying to escape from the pile of bodies trapping her but it was no use. She gave up with a strangled breath as she somehow ended up half sitting on Stacie with Cynthia Rose and Amy on top of her.

Beca glared at all of them. Not just the three trapping her but Lily, Jessica and Ashley (who she had heard yelling out encouragement to her captors) who were all in hysterics. And she shot Chloe a particularly fiery glare but was met with an unrepentant beaming smile and a cheeky wink. “I hate all of you so much.”

“Ow! Chloe, Beca hurt my feelings!” Amy’s shout also came with a crushing squeeze.

“Beca, say you’re sorry.”

Beca felt another elbow dig into her ribs and wheezed, Cynthia Rose laughed and retreated to her own seat. This gave Beca a clear view of the redhead so she could hit her with an incredulous look.

“What? Chloe, you’ve got to be kidding,” Chloe just gave Beca a stern look. “Fine! I am sorry I hurt your stupid feelings.”

“Ha! Can’t believe that worked.” Amy shoved off of Beca and strutted to her chaise.

“I can.” Stacie slid gracefully from under Beca and made a whipping motion as she flounced over to Cynthia Rose’s couch where mot of the Bella’s had gathered to laugh at their captain.

“I am not whipped!”

“You’re a little whipped.”

Beca swivelled her head to face a smiling Chloe perched on the arm rest, “You! This is all your fault!”

Chloe reached down to fix Beca’s hair but was swatted away. She laughed and shrugged at the glowering brunette, “I mean, I guess it’s a little my fault.”

“Oh, it is entirely your fault. I do not want people to _fawn_ over me.”

“You definitely do. But I think it’s cute.”

Beca had been gearing herself up for a big defensive statement only to have the breath knocked out of her lungs at Chloe’s last words. “Cute?”

“Yeah,” She reaches down to fix her hair again and this time Beca was too caught up to swat at her, “You get so passionate about your mixes. You get this happy little nervous smile when you show someone a mix you’re proud of.” Chloe shrugs and gives an odd smile, “It’s cute.”

She gets up to join the huddle on the couch and leaves Beca gaping after her. If Beca didn’t think that Chloe was incapable of the human emotion embarrassment, she would have sworn that Chloe had a little blush as she left.

It was that thought that led Beca to the discovery of why Chloe last smile seemed odd.

It was an _embarrassed_ smile.

Beca flushed at her discovery and felt a smile stretch across her face. Chloe had called her cute and had then gotten embarrassed by it.

-

Chloe stays in the apartment that she and Aubrey lived in for most of their joint Barden days. It would feel too weird living anywhere else now. She doesn’t mind that it can get lonely when she comes home to a dark and empty apartment filled with memories of years with her best friend.

This place is her home.

She knows it’s her home because it’s where the people she loves tend to constantly hang out. Chloe’s cool with it because she loves people, her Bella’s especially, and they help fight off the loneliness that sometimes seeps in.

She’s not quite sure how it happened, but the apartment turned into the Bella’s hang out spot. It made sense for group hangs because it’s bigger than all of their dorm rooms but somewhere along the way individual Bella’s start coming around.

When Cynthia Rose’s ex has her all turned around again, she calls Chloe from around the corner. (She never outright says what’s happened, but Chloe knows that she needs her, it always goes like this; “Hey girl, how’s your night?”) Chloe pulls out a bottle of scotch and stays up with her all night, pretending that she can’t see Cynthia Rose cut her eyes towards a pack of cards on her shelf.

Some nights they don’t need to talk, it’s enough for Cynthia Rose that she’s not alone and some nights they’ll talk about anything from Chloe’s postponed graduation to Cynthia Rose’s gambling problem. They both end up feeling better and somehow worse on those nights but Chloe wouldn’t change it.

Jessica and Ashley come over a few times as well. Whenever they come over, Chloe’s found that baking is what works the best at making them feel better. They’ll bake and then when they leave with stacked containers they seem lighter and happier than when they arrived. Chloe figures that she doesn’t need to know what brought them to her as long as they leave feeling better.

If Stacie gets stuck on a tough math problem, she’ll send a series of increasingly frustrated texts to Chloe until she arrives in the apartment with a flurry. Chloe laughs and tries to follow along as Stacie paces back and forth while cursing out the entire maths department.

She lets Stacie burn herself out before offering her a drink and making her simplify the problem; somehow, five drinks in and rehashing the problem, Stacie stumbles across the answer. Chloe never understands the problem, but that never seems to matter.

Stacie will stop suddenly to scribble something down before turning back to Chloe with a wide grin and tops up both of their drinks. They both crash out on the couch and wake to find the room littered with papers Stacie used to drunkenly try and explain aeronautical engineering math problems to Chloe.

Chloe has never actually seen Lily come over but one morning she came out to find a cup washed and drying in the sink. After that she buys Lily’s favourite type of tea and leaves it out on the counter. She’s never awake when it happens but somehow overnight, there’ll be the same mug washed and drying in the sink and the tea will slowly disappear. Chloe counts that as a victory as well.

Chloe’s favourite nights are when Beca comes over though.

She’ll always be so awkward about it, trying to find an excuse of some kind until Chloe tugs her into the apartment. She’d sit on the couch fidgeting until Chloe rolls her eyes and puts on a song that Beca will never admit to liking but will always know the words to. She’ll let herself be tugged up from the couch and join in on Chloe’s dance party after putting up some more token resistance.

Chloe doesn’t push Beca to tell her what’s going on or why she showed up and she thinks that’s why Beca comes to her so often. It doesn’t matter how much Chloe may want to know what’s going on, she doesn’t push at Beca until Beca is ready for it. If Beca sees her apartment as some sort of sanctuary than Chloe is not going to be the one to take that away from her.

Chloe loves that her apartment has become something of a sanctuary to the Bella’s. She loves that she’s someone that they’ll come to with their problems because she genuinely cares about her Bella’s. The bond and trust that they all have is, in her opinion, the best part of being a Bella.

Having all of her Bella sisters around constantly makes Chloe forget how lonely she can get without Aubrey there. It reminds Chloe of why she made the decision to stay back an extra year.

-

Beca really is trying to open up.

Her relationship with Jesse started off with such a bang and Beca is just trying to keep that sort of energy up. Mainly for Jesse who keeps showing up with flowers (one time and Beca laughed at him) and movie that he wants to show her.

So she tries. She plays around with the soundtracks of his favourite movies and makes him a mashup, she sits and watches movies she doesn’t like because Jesse put in the effort to create a “cinema level experience”.

She tries but it’s been months and Beca starts to slip. She really likes Jesse, he makes her laugh and she’s happy with him, but their relationship settles in a way that he’s left doing a lot of the work. She’s been alone so long that she sometimes forgets that she has to pull her walls down around him. He’s patient about it but she always feels guilty and promises to try harder but it’s just not as easy with Jesse as she thought it would be.

That’s made clear to her when he comes to find her one their three-month anniversary.

(She didn’t even know that was a thing.)

She’s studying on the quad when Jesse shows up.

“Hey! I finally found you! I’ve been looking for you for ages. Kimmy Jin still does not like me by the way.” His excited voice breaks her out of her very boring reading assignment for her classes.

She watches him sit down next to her with a small smile. “Yeah, I’m starting to get the feeling she doesn’t like anyone associated with me.”

“Only starting to? Wow.”

“Shut up, dude.” She rolls her eye as Jesse laughs. She reopens her book as if to make a point.

“So, why were you looking for me? Is there another movie you want me to sit through?”

“Hey! You liked The Breakfast Club,” He sat up ready to argue the good points of movies once again but Beca just waved her hand at him. “But no, I was not exactly looking for you to continue your movication-“

“Stop calling it that.”

“Never.” He carried on as if she hadn’t interrupted, “I was actually looking for you because of what day today is.”

Panic filled her at his expectant look. She wracked her brain to try and think of anything special about today.

“Uh. It’s, uh, Tuesday?”

She knew she was wrong as Jesse’s smile dimmed a little. She kept running through options but she couldn’t figure it out. Was it his birthday? No, Benji would have set off some sort of magic trick. Was it her birthday? Definitely not, she would never have a moment of peace away from the Bella’s if it were. They didn’t have any acapella things on today so Beca was lost.

Jesse was still watching her expectantly as she cycled through her panic. Beca’s shoulders shrugged and collapsed inward as she gave up. “Just give me a hint.”

His brow furrowed as she pleaded, “You really don’t know?” She shook her head hesitantly and winced at the sad, disappointed look on his face. “Becs, it’s our three-month anniversary.”

“Our what?”

“Three-month anniversary Beca. We started dating three months ago.”

“Yeah, no, I got the anniversary part. But, I mean, is that even a thing? Three-month anniversaries?” Beca’s panic faded into confusion at the seriousness on his face. She was pretty sure that three-month anniversaries were not a big celebration event.

Jesse thought otherwise. “Yeah, Beca. It’s a milestone.”

Beca made a face and while that did not appear to please Jesse, she was pretty sure that the laugh she was barely holding back would please him less. “Okay, sorry dude. I didn’t know that was something to celebrate.”

“You don’t think we should celebrate being together?”

Her panic came back in force as the conversation took an unexpected turn. “What? No! I mean, yes! Yes, us being together is good Jesse.” He didn’t look convinced, in fact, he still just looked hurt. “Jesse, come on, you know I’m bad at this stuff. I just,” She grabs his hand, “I just didn’t know three-month anniversaries were an actual thing people did.”

“Well, I do Beca.”

“Yeah, I get that and I’m sorry.” He still wouldn’t look at her and Beca felt her stomach sink at the thought of her somehow managing to screw up another relationship by pushing them away. She didn’t eve meant to this time! “Jess, please. You know I’m bad at this relationship stuff. Of course I like dating you, of course I’m happy we’ve been together for three-months. I just wasn’t counting the days, that’s all.”

He finally looks up at her and Beca squeezed his hand with a smile, “I promise that I will make a huge deal out of our four-month anniversary.”

He laughs and Beca internally heaves a sigh of relief. If he’s laughing, it means that she can probably fix whatever this was.

“No one celebrates a four-month anniversary Beca.”

“We can be the first. I don’t really follow other people anyway.” She shrugs.

“Cause you’re such a badass with you acapella team?” He smiles as he teases her and Beca relaxes back into the teasing rhythm they usually have.

“I don’t know why you’re laughing. You’ve seen how they react to intruders.” She laughed as his face paled at the memory.

“I still keep my back to the wall whenever I’m around Lily.” He shudders, “That girl scares me.”

“She scares everyone.”

He gives her a fake considering look. A smile threatens to break along his face and Beca carefully keeps her face blank and raises and eyebrow at him. “I suppose Captain Mitchell, that if you are the leader of such a team, you may be considered a badass.”

Beca nods her head solemnly as Jesse breaks and a grin emerges. “But only by some people. Who have never met you before.”

She gasps in offense. “Dude.”

-

That afternoon she messages the group chat.

_Why did no one tell me that three-month anniversaries are a thing?_

She was trying to be stealthy about it. To make it up to him, she had promised Jesse that she would watch movies with him to celebrate their anniversary.

_What? They are? Since when?_

Cynthia Rose was the first to reply and Beca was glad that she wasn’t the only one confused. Cynthia Rose was a reasonable adult who had reasonable adult relationships before, if she didn’t know they were a thing then Beca was in the clear.

_Did loverboy want to party and you weren’t ready?_

She had really been hoping that Amy was busy tonight.

_If you need tips Beca, I can help out ; )_

There was really only one way to react to Stacie’s offer.

_Dude, no._

_Uh, yeah sure. Stacie only has three-minute anniversaries._

Beca laughed a little too loudly at Amy’s message and caught Jesse’s attention.

“Beca?”

“Yeah, all good. Sorry, I just remembered something for practice tomorrow.”

“Okay, cool. Well this popcorn is nearly done.”

She meant to say something back but then she read Stacie’s reply.

_Please. As if they could last that long._

_Ooooooooooh_

_Damn girl!_

She could practically see Stacie rolling her eyes and flicking her hair as well and Cynthia Rose and Amy laughing wildly.

_Gross._

She really didn’t know what she was thinking when she posed this question to the Bella’s.

_I don’t know why I thought this would help._

_Stacie very kindly offered her assistance Beca. It would be rude to refuse._

_Yeah DJ B. Get all up in there._

Of course. When Chloe finally chimes in, it’s not to help Beca. No, it’s to help the Bella’s embarrass her.

_I hate all of you._

She really should have known that saying that means nothing to these girls. No, because she had to go and get all sappy in an empty pool.

_Is that why you didn’t remember our three-month anniversary?_

_What’s the matter Beca? I thought you loved us, why don’t you want to celebrate us._

_Probably because it’s hard to top showering together on the first date._

Beca was somewhat expecting the first two messages and so she was kind of prepared for them. What she was not prepared for was Cynthia Rose’s message. She could feel her eyes widen as her mouth dropped open and she knew, she just _knew_ , that wherever she was, Chloe was laughing her ass off.

_WHAT_

Beca’s heart was beating at a worryingly fast pace. Is this what a heart attack felt like?

_CHLOE_

Have the Bella’s finally succeeded in killing a Captain due to heart complications?

_YOU TOLD THEM????_

She had really thought it would have been Aubrey to go first but this makes sense too.

_Duh Beca. Why wouldn’t she?_

Stacie. Beca was going to make her run laps tomorrow.

_It’s a great meet cute story._

Unsurprisingly, Chloe was not apologetic. She was running laps tomorrow too.

_Real emotional._

Cynthia Rose could also run laps. All of them. They’re all running laps until they’re as red in the face as Beca is right now.

_You’re all kicked out. Take your chairs and leave._

_ACA-SCUSE ME_

Beca silenced her phone before Amy’s response could set the girls off even more. She would have to deal with the repercussions later because right as she did that, Jesse appeared in the doorway.

“Alright. We have popcorn, we have some of the greatest movies of all time, and, most importantly, we have each other.” From the way he batted his eyes at her as he finished, Beca knew it was fine that she fake gagged at him.

“That was so cheesy. You should be ashamed.” Her voice was serious but the smile on her face said otherwise.

“Oh, come on, Becs! I worked hard on that.” She threw popcorn at him but he only caught it in his mouth. He looked far too impressed with himself because of it. “Hey, why are you so red?”

“What?”

“You’re blushing. Was it how romantic our three-month anniversary is?”

She scoffed. “Not a chance, bud. It had nothing to do with you.”

It had everything to do with an unrepentant, boundary-less redhead and a shower but nothing to do with Jesse or his anniversaries.

He let out a disbelieving hum and Beca rolled her eye towards the ceiling and made a silent vow that the Bella’s would be running laps tomorrow until they wanted Aubrey back.

-

The Bella’s unsurprisingly sweep through Regionals with the ease of National Champions. Chloe can feel the distinct lack of tension amongst the team. Everyone works in sync and with Beca in charge of their setlist, they power through the competition easily.

The performance is flawless, Amy keeps her shirt on, Stacie doesn’t grab at her chest, no one throws up on the audience and everyone knows the choreography. Chloe beams with pride the entire trip back to Barden.

Despite the wave of victory that the team is riding, Chloe notices Beca become a little more withdrawn. Her shoulders hunch a little and she starts to get a little more harried in her approach to the practices and the setlists. Chloe isn’t new to dealing with stressed captains so when Beca snaps a little more at practices, she nods reassuringly at the wide-eyed looks cast her way.

Semi-finals is only a few weeks away when she sees the next big change in Beca. She’s no longer as snappish but she’s morphed to become sullener and pulls away from the group faster. Chloe’s not sure that the rest of the team have picked it up outside of their own stress with coursework and concerns about Beca becoming Aubrey 2.0 but Chloe’s still concerned.

Which is why she considers it perfectly reasonable to ambush her captain in her own dorm room.

“Jesus Christ!”

“Nope. Close though.”

Chloe spins around in Beca’s desk chair as Beca shuffles forward and dumps her bags on her bed. She’s pretty sure the slight scowl on the DJ’s face is directed at her bags and not Chloe. Pretty sure. “Ha ha. What are you doing here? How did you even get in?”

“Would you believe me if I said the window?” Chloe turned a charming grin on Beca only to be met with a pointedly unimpressed expression.

“No.”

She shrugs. “Worth a shot. Kimmy Jin let me in before she left.”

“Kimmy Jin let you in?”

“Mmhm.” Chloe hums and inspects her nails for a second before looking back up at Beca’s surprised face, “She does not like you.”

“I get that a lot.” Beca’s surprise is replaced with an eye roll, “You never answered my question.”

Chloe cocks an eyebrow. Beca plants herself onto her bed so that she’s kind of facing Chloe but is largely facing the opposite wall.

“What are you doing here Chloe?”

“I came to talk to you.”

“And you couldn’t just text me?”

Chloe sits up straighter in the chair and frowns a little at Beca. “I have been texting you. _You’ve_ been too busy isolating yourself from the team.”

“I have not.” Beca deflects as she looks away and focuses on the wall. Chloe smiles grimly.

“If you say so.” Chloe’s sure that she didn’t mean to make her voice come out so flat and disbelieving. She softens it before continuing, “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on.”

“Okay, just thought I’d check in.” Chloe sighs and makes her way to the door. Beca’s eyes haven’t stopped bouncing between the wall and her hands, they occasionally dart to Chloe but are always gone just as fast.

“Wait.” She turns as Beca heaves a sigh that twinges something in Chloe’s chest. She looks so small and defeated and Chloe just wants to protect her. Beca pulls her eyes from her hands and looks at Chloe steadily. “You’re right. I have been pulling away.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m scared.” Beca’s eyes move back to her hands as Chloe takes a few steps towards her.

“Scared? What are you scared of Beca? We’re doing great.” Chloe sinks onto the bed next to Beca.

“I know. That’s kind of why I’m scared.”

Chloe doesn’t get why that would make Beca scared and though Beca clearly doesn’t want to go into it, Chloe can’t help until she knows what’s going on. “You’re going to have to explain this one to me.”

“Argh.” Beca groans and then shifts quickly so she’s facing Chloe completely, “Okay, so, you remember last year right?”

“What am I? A goldfish?” Chloe rolls her eyes and hits Beca with just enough sarcasm to get a return eyeroll. “Yes, Beca. I remember last year.”

“Not like that. Last year at the semi’s, I didn’t…. I just messed it all up.”

Chloe softened entirely at how upset Beca both looked and sounded. Beca was always so hard on herself and Chloe would sometimes forget just how much Beca took things to heart. All she could do was offer her forgiveness for something she had already been forgiven of. “Beca…”

“No, I did. And I’m just scared of it happening again.” Beca was still upset but Chloe couldn’t help the sharp flash of annoyance at her.

“So, you were scared of repeating last years’ mistake of pulling away from everyone.” Beca nods but her brow furrows at Chloe’s leading tone and she looked wary. Chloe let some of her annoyance shine through in her next words as she pinned Beca with an unimpressed stare. “And you handled this by pulling away from everyone.”

“It sounds bad when you say it like that.” She grumbles.

“Probably because it was a bad plan.” Despite her sharp words, Chloe leans her head back against the wall and closes her eyes.

“Now you tell me.” Beca matches her position and Chloe allows herself to lean against the surly brunette and rests her head against hers.

“Well I would have told you sooner, but you were to busy being a jerk to come to us with your problems.” Beca snorts at the statement and nods softly in agreement. Chloe feels her lips curl up without her permission and doesn’t fight as the smile blooms across her face.

Beca doesn’t say anything and Chloe is more than content to sit in silence with her. If she closes her eyes and really listens, she can almost hear Beca’s heartbeat. She hears a sniffle and opens her eyes to Beca aggressively brushing under her eyes with her knuckles.

Voice choked with emotion Chloe sit up and gently guides Beca’s face, so she has to look at her, “Beca, I’m your friend. That means that when you’re struggling, I’m here.” Beca bites her lip hard to try and stop more tears but Chloe cups her face and wipes away tears gently with her thumb. She pulls Beca into a tight hug and closes her eyes as Beca clutches back just as tightly. “I’m here _for you_. You don’t have to be scared of semi’s or of messing anything up. We’re a stronger team than last year Beca.”

“God. Why are you so calming and good at this?” Beca mumbles into her shoulder. She pulls back and sniffs once as she settles back against the wall and turns a warm, soft look on the redhead. “I’ve been told by many sources that I am great at pushing people away.”

“And _I_ have been told by many sources that I’m great at pulling people in.”

“Really?”

“Yep.” She nudges her shoulder against Beca with a wry grin, “In fact, there was this alt-girl last year who I pulled into an acapella team.”

Beca made a face of faux shock. “What happened to her?”

“She fought it at first, thought she was too cool for making music with her mouth.” Beca snorts and shoves lightly at Chloe’s thigh. “But she came around.”

“Well I’m sure she’s very grateful that you’re there to bring her around.”

“Always.” Chloe grabbed Beca’s hand and intertwined their fingers as their hands swung loosely between them.

Beca looked down at their joined hands and smiled slightly. “You are such a dork.”

“Maybe but I bet you feel better now.”

“I do. Thanks, Chloe.”

“Anytime alt-girl.”

-

Their three-month anniversary wasn’t the last time Beca and Jesse had wildly different ideas of their relationship. Beca keeps to her promise as much as she can; she puts in an effort to be more romantic, more present in their relationship. She tries to put in an equal amount of work as Jesse but she just gets wiped out in the process.

Jesse has such a grand idea of what the picture perfect ideal relationship should be. Beca feels out of place so often, it makes her skin itch, makes her feel that she’s playing a role that she doesn’t quite fit or even really wants.

Despite this, she forces herself to make it work. And it does, for a time. They were barely out of semi-finals when it stopped working as well.

“Just so you know,” Beca turned with a cocky smirk ready as Jesse sidles up next to her and nods at their small trophy, “That’s just beginner’s luck.”

“Oh, really?” Beca pouted and frowned a little as she made a thinking face, “And here I was thinking that beginner’s luck would have gone after last year when we beat you for the National title. Silly me.”

Jesse laughed and raised his eyebrows. “You just wait until this Nationals when we unleash the beast.”

“Go ahead, we’re planning on unleashing Stacie.”

“Oof. You are not playing around.” Jesse clutched at his chest and threw his head back, Beca broke her smirk to laugh at his antics. He curled his arm around her and tugged her into his side with a wide smile, “So, I was thinking we could get out of here and see if we can find somewhere fun. You know, those small places that no one really knows but are always the best?”

Beca smiled up at him before sucking air in through her teeth and pushing off him with the same look she gave him at the riff off. “Not tonight. We’re off to celebrate, it’s a winner’s only event.”

“No worries, I can be your plus one. I make fantastic arm candy.” He struck a few poses as Beca laughed but she nudged away his hand when he reached for her.

“Maybe another night. It’s kind of a team thing, you know? Bonding and all that.” She shrugged a shoulder.

“What? No room for me? Come on, Becs.” Jesse’s smile seemed a little edgier and more forced this time.

Beca, sure she was imagining it, shook her head. “Sorry, dude.”

“’Dude?’” Jesse was _definitely_ frowning now, “Beca, I’m your boyfriend”

“Yeah, I know.” Beca was confused and starting to get a little annoyed herself. Something that came through as she slowly said the words to make sure that she was heard. “And they’re my team. More than that, they’re my friends.” Beca frowned as she squared her shoulders and crossed her arms. Jesse scoffed as he saw her defensive stance.

Maybe last year she would have just run from this conflict but Beca had learned exactly where running got her. (It got her a redhead ambushing her and forcing her to face her problems.) With that in mind, she frowned and tried again, “You know all of that, so what’s wrong Jesse?”

They were passed by some random kid in a headset and suddenly Beca realised that they weren’t as alone as it felt. Jesse seemed to realise it too and they both moved into the hallway. They still weren’t in the privacy that Beca would have preferred but this seemed like it was the kind of conversation that shouldn’t and couldn’t be postponed.

Beca stood stiff against the wall and watched as Jesse fidgeted with the agitation that seemed to surge through him.

“This isn’t the first time this has happened Beca! This isn’t even the fifth time it’s happened! You want to bond with your team and be with your friends, that’s great! But why don’t you want to do any of that with me?” Jesse sighs and his shoulders cave inwards, Beca shifts uncomfortably at the defeat that seems to emanate from him. “I just don’t understand why I always seem to fall behind your friends in your eyes.”

“You’re not behind them,” Beca felt guilt twinge at the defeated look on his face. She doesn’t like the idea of her accidentally hurting Jesse, he’s important to her. But her responsibilities are important to her too. “They’re my team Jesse.”

“Is that why you keep bailing on me for them?”

“Jesse.” Beca couldn’t muster the same fire that she had just been using to power her argument.

Jesse stared at her intensely for a second before slumping back against the opposite wall and running his hand through his hair with frustration. “You’re never completely there when we’re together Beca. I’ve noticed how you’re always holding back, you’re quiet or distant and then you’re gone. I see you the most at the damn radio station Beca!”

“I’m allowed friends Jesse.”

“I’m not saying that you aren’t Beca!” Beca sucked in her bottom lip as Jesse’s fire left him in a harsh exhale, “We were friends first too, don’t forget. I just don’t understand why you won’t bring me with you to hang out. I’m your boyfriend, you’re supposed to want to spend time with me.” Beca felt the tears well up in her eyes as Jesse spread his arms wide with a broken smile. “All I’m saying is that I just wish I was as important to you as they are.”

“Jesse.” Her voice cracked as the emotion chokes her but Beca still tries.

“It’s okay. Have fun with your friends Beca. Congratulations, you were great out there.” Her pleas fell on deaf ears as Jesse gives a weak smile and walks away. Beca can’t do anything but watch as he turns the corner and disappears from view.

“Damn it.” Her head falls against the wall with a thump and Beca pretends that’s the reason there are tears in her eyes. She closes her eyes to try and stop them from falling.

“Beca?”

A choked laugh came from her throat as she heard the call of her name. Beca rolls her head to the side and opens her eyes to meet startling blue ones.

“Of course, it’s you. It’s always you to find me like this.” Beca lets herself sink down the wall until she’s sitting on the floor with a concerned Chloe hovering next to her.

Chloe looked confused and Beca couldn’t bring herself to explain why she’s on the floor in a random hallway with tears in her eyes. “Is everything okay? I saw Jesse leave-“ At that Beca looked up at Chloe and she seemed to understand what happened without Beca having to say a thing. Her entire face softened, and she sank down next to Beca, “Oh, Beca.”

Chloe didn’t say anything more and Beca was thankful for that because she really couldn’t deal with any more emotions right now. They sat in relative silence until Beca heard familiar voices growing louder as they sounded out in celebration.

Beca felt fingers creep along her jaw and tilt her head so that she was looking at Chloe, “Now, we are going to round up the girls and then we are going to celebrate the fact that we’re going to be two-time National champions.”

“I don’t really feel like celebrating right now.” In fact, all she wanted to do was go and sit in her dark room and mix until everything she was feeling had been transcribed into something tangible. She needed to put all of her emotion somewhere else so it wasn’t just swirling around in her head.

“I know. But this,” She gestures at the stupid trophy that Beca hadn’t realised she’d still been holding, “This is a victory Beca, and we celebrate victories.”

“It doesn’t feel like a victory.”

“I know how that feels.” She pulls Beca up and guides her out of the hallway with an arm tossed over her shoulder, “And in my experience, getting blind drunk makes it either feel more like a victory or less like you lost something.”

Chloe seems solemn when she looks over at her and Beca is beginning to be sure that she does actually know how she feels, “You know how I feel?”

Chloe smiles at her and Beca believes her when she speaks, “More than you would know. Trust me.”

-

As much as she would love to say that they stopped fighting after that, Beca would be wrong. It almost seemed to get worse. Jesse kept pushing for Beca to be more open with her emotions but after the hallway, she found it more difficult to be open and honest with him in the way he kept pushing for.

It’s just different when she’s with the Bella’s. Something that she chalks up to the power of female friendship. Something that Jesse laughs at the first few times when she forgets about dates because she’s with the Bella’s, he stops laughing the fifth time it happens. Beca can feel a weird tension between them, can see the frustrated tint to his smiles when she makes her excuses, but it keeps happening.

She just gets so caught up with her duties as captain of the Bella’s that she forgets about her duties as a girlfriend.

She brings it up with Cynthia Rose one time when they’re working on a new idea for a practice. She was hoping that Cynthia Rose would be able to help because outside of Chloe, she gives the best advice.

“You know being someone’s girlfriend shouldn’t feel like a duty, right?”

At her desk, Beca groans and buries her head in her folded arms, “I know. It usually doesn’t but Jesse just … I don’t know, it’s like he thinks he’s in a competition with the Bella’s or something. Which is crazy because he’s not.”

“You sure about that DJ B?”

Beca lifted her head and glared at Cynthia Rose who simply raises her hands and shrugs. “I’m not saying he’s right. I’m just saying that he kind of is in a competition with the Bella’s.” At Beca’s deepening scowl, she hurried to explain, “At least in terms of your time.”

“So, what? I should just start dropping practices to go and watch a movie I don’t really care about?” Beca feels a little guilty at the sharpness of her tone but she’s just so frustrated. No matter how many ways she looks at this situation, someone always loses out. She’s either not able to spend as much time with Jesse as he deserves or she’s not able to give the Bella’s the time they need. “I can’t do that! We’re so close to Nationals and nothing can mess that up!”

“Hey, whoa. I know that. We all know that Beca.” Cynthia Rose has her hands out as if Beca’s some sort of wild animal that she needs to calm down. Beca’s not entirely sure that it’s not a fitting image of her at the moment. “Maybe you should have this talk with Jesse?”

Beca huffs and drags a hand across her face, “Every time I try it just comes out wrong. It just turns into a fight and then I just leave.”

“In the middle of a fight?”

She laughs but there’s no humour in it. “Yeah, I guess it runs in the family huh?”

Beca waves off Cynthia Rose’s disapproving frown, “I know, I know, I’m supposed to be working on moving past these comparisons. Don’t worry, Chloe’s given me the speech a hundred times when I show up on her doorstep after.”

“You go to Chloe’s?” There’s a thread of surprise in her tone that has Beca tilting her head curiously.

“What? You don’t?” It’s a well-known fact among the Bella’s that Chloe’s apartment is the go-to whenever any of them are upset. The edges of an idea started forming in the back of her mind but Beca nudged it aside to continue her thought process. She would honestly be shocked if she found out that one of them hadn’t come to Chloe on their own if they were struggling, “You know how she is. It’s just so easy to talk it all through with her.”

When she gets a knowing nod in return, Beca leaves it rest for a few seconds, “And no matter what time I get there she always has tea. That stuff is like magic I swear. I don’t know what she puts in there but it makes all the talking easier, you know?”

“I don’t drink the tea when I’m there but yeah, I get it.”

Satisfied with her agreeance, Beca turns back to the idea that they were hashing out on her laptop. She hums out a few melodies before her skin prickles with the sensation of being watched. She glances at Cynthia Rose and her considering look as she stares at Beca. She raises an eyebrow at the girl, “What? You have a face.”

Cynthia Rose just shakes her head softly and shifts in closer to check out what they had so far, “I just think you’re right is all.” When it looks like she won’t continue after that unnecessarily cryptic remark, Beca motions for her to explain, “I don’t think Jesse’s competing with the Bella’s.”

Even though Cynthia Rose was agreeing with her, something in her tone left a frown on Beca’s face as she tried to figure out the meaning that seemed to be hiding in the words.

-

They’re celebrating at Chloe’s apartment. They’ve just won their second national title. They’re all buzzing on whatever drinks they could cobble together. It’s right then that it really sinks in for Beca.

This is her family. This is her home.

She’s struck into silence. She watches her girls jumps around and dance and it’s like they’re in slow motion and muted. Beca feels like she’s a world away but at the same time she’s never felt closer to people. Something about all of them in the apartment together gives her a feeling of home and family that she’s wanted so badly but constantly run from.

A small nudge on her shoulder brings her back to herself and she gives Chloe a reassuring smile as she joins back in to the celebrations. The idea that had been floating around her brain for the past week came back with full definition. She sipped at her drink as she began to plan out how she would pitch the idea to the team.

Later that night, Beca finds herself standing in front of her favourite part of the apartment. (Maybe even the entire Barden campus). They all called it the achievement wall.

None of them know for sure when it started but Chloe has a wall dedicated solely to the achievements of her Bella’s. It doesn’t just house their winning certificates from all of their competitions, but it also keeps copies of individual awards that the Bella’s had won. She has a copy of Stacie’s last exam where she got 99%, Cynthia Rose’s chip from Gambler’s Anonymous, reviews of their victories as the Barden Bella’s, and a handful of articles from the campus newsletter about Beca’s spot at the radio station.

Surrounding all of these are pictures of the Bella’s, all in different groups, sometimes just individual shots (Amy had hers ‘professionally’ done). Jokes are always made about the wall and how it’s basically Chloe’s version of a refrigerator to brag about her Bella children. Even still, they all love the wall and whenever something new goes up, they’ll hold a party to honour it.

It’s the best Bella tradition in Beca’s opinion. She loves the wall, no matter how many jokes she will always make about it.

“There you are!” She startles from her thoughts as Chloe barrels into her and wraps her tightly.

“Oh god, Chloe! I have to breath at some point.” Beca chokes out as Chloe nuzzles into her neck. Beca ignores the rush that floods her body as she keeps her hands out and away from the tipsy redhead clinging to her.

Chloe scoffs and somehow tucks herself even tighter into Beca. She mumbles something into her neck but Beca can’t hear it over the blood rushing through her ears. She had never really thought about how she would react if a wildly affectionate redhead inadvertently dragged her lips across her neck. Apparently, she would freeze and her brain would fizz out. Go figure.

Beca flushes and clears her throat as she focuses on the wall again, “I, uh, I didn’t quite catch that.”

Chloe giggles and back up a step. As she does, she trails her hands down Beca’s arms to grab hold of her hands. (Beca blames the tingling sensation left behind on a breeze. In a hall with no windows.) “I said I missed you, silly.”

Beca cocked an eyebrow, “You missed me? I haven’t even been gone that long.”

“I noticed, and I missed you.” Chloe shrugged carelessly before swaying forward, draping her arm around Beca and turning to look at the wall with a soft sight, “I love this wall.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s all about the Bella’s and our success as a family.” Chloe’s smile isn’t the biggest or brightest smile that Beca has seen her unleash but it radiates a warmth that engulfs her.

Emotions crowd their way into her throat as they fight in her mind over which she should express first. Beca swallows them all down and stares back at the wall and the dozens of familiar faces that smile back at her. She feels a little something that was shining in Chloe’s smile, “Family?”

“Of course. The Bella’s are a family Beca. They’re _our_ family.” Chloe has the hint of a frown on her face as she strengthens her tone as if the notion of Beca denying it would be ridiculous.

“Yeah. They are.” Beca grins. She pauses as she glances quickly between Chloe and the wall of achievement. She stamps down on her nerves, takes a deep breath and then meets the eyes of a curious Chloe, “I have an idea for next year.”

She’s surprised that not once has she felt the urge to run or push away any of the Bella’s. That this time, when she finds a place that feels homey, she not only wants to stay but she wants to commit to it even further. It’s a new feeling for Beca but she already kind of likes it.

That doesn’t mean she’s not nervous enough to ramble. “I’ve been doing some reading about the school teams and clubs in the library and it’s possible that we can petition the school for housing. A house of our own. For the Bella’s.” Beca pauses to take a breath and realises that she’s been talking with her hands a lot.

Embarrassed, she fiddles with the ends of her shirt for something to do as she glances up from under her lashes at Chloe and pumps a bit of fake confidence into her voice, “I mean, if the Trebles could do it, then so can we, right?”

“Beca…” Chloe’s voice trailed off and her eyes were wide. Beca could feel her panic rising the longer she stayed quiet. Still, she didn’t say anything as she watched Chloe think it all over. It seemed like she was waiting forever but she knew that she wouldn’t have been waiting long at all.

“Okay.” Chloe sealed it with a firm nod, “Okay, let’s do it.”

Beca feels her lips curl and form a smile but she tries to tamper out her joy in case Chloe thought better of it, “You’re serious? You think it’s a good idea?”

“I’m serious and I think it’s a great idea. I love it.” This time Chloe’s smile is one of the biggest and brightest that Beca has ever seen.

“Really?” She knew that Chloe was in now but Beca still struggled to believe that this idea might actually be about to come true. She worried at her lip as another thought struck her, “Do you think the others will like it too?”

“I think that they’re going to love it.” She must have still looked nervous because Chloe stepped in and tugged her into another hug. Beca went willingly this time and wrapped her arms around Chloe just as tightly, “This is a great idea Beca. Really.” Chloe leaned back and took Beca’s face in her hands.

Beca felt like she was being hypnotised between the gentle circles Chloe’s thumbs were making and the depth of her earnest eyes. She has no doubt that she would have been lost in Chloe’s stare had it not been for her voice pulling her back, “We’re going to go tell them and they’re going to go through the roof.”

-

Just as she had said, the Bella’s loved the idea and were immediately on board. Chloe couldn’t help but laugh as she watched Beca be overcome by the excitement of the girls, no hesitation, no questions apart from “How soon can we move in?”

In all the excitement, Chloe can hardly be blamed for forgetting her major paper in Russian Lit is due.

She’s not too stressed over it though. Sure, it may cost her more but when anyone asks, she just tells them you can’t put a price on family. And there was no way Chloe could leave the Bella’s now that they were getting their own house! She wanted to be there for that more than anything.

The housing acceptance letter comes over break to Chloe’s apartment and her first call is to Beca.

The letter is framed and added to the wall.

 


End file.
